Taut
by The Teeta Monster
Summary: When a terrible disease robs his Edward of his body, he must rely on those around him to keep him alive. Parental!Royed This is a sick fic LET ME HAVE MY FUN!
1. Chapter 1

It was supposed to have been simple.

Complaints of ruined barns and missing livestock had come in from the rural villages northwest of East City. Pillagers, though Colonel Roy Mustang, stealing the produce of their hardworking neighbors and reaping the benefits for themselves. A juvenile case, compared to the other missions on Edward's file, an easy pass, or whatever kids these days were saying. Mustang could not understand the boy's irate reaction to the briefing.

"This is not what I agreed to!" The Fullmetal Alchemist made to jab the index finger of his right hand into the manila folder lying open upon the colonel's desk, caught himself just in time, resigning the action to hovering the tip of his finger over the white papers poxed with minute letters of black ink. The colonel was slightly disappointed. He would have loved an excuse to subtract another ninety-three hundred cenz from Fullmetal's research funds, but he supposed the kid's last incident with the colonel's furniture still lay fresh in his mind. "This has nothing to do with the Philosopher's Stone. It doesn't even involve alchemy! Make one of your university-dropouts do it, it's all they're good for.

"You agreed to become a certified alchemist of the state, with access to the collections of data from advanced experiments unattainable by the general public, and the impunity to perform such advanced experiments to culminate such data. In return, you must act as an officer of my regiment, and my subordinate, until such a time when you no longer desire the knowledge only the military can provide."

His speech was met with a silent glare.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Fullmetal. The abnormal lack of capacity in that undersized brain of yours escaped me. You probably can't understand any of the big, grown-up words I'm using. Here, let me break it down for you."

The colonel leaned across his desk towards Ed, adopting an expression of mock sympathy.

"You will accept this assignment because I told you to, and I, in fact, _can_ tell you what to do, Fullmetal. So I suggest you read the transcripts in that file," he nodded towards the open folder, "or get used to getting rejected from a lot of libraries and laboratories."

Edward didn't move for a good five seconds, but Roy saw the desperately suppressed panic flash in those yellow eyes, and knew he'd won. Finally, after he couldn't keep his eyes fixed with that rebellious light any longer because they were tearing up from their owner's refusal to blink, he snatched the folder with his left hand, purposefully slamming his palm down and whipping the staunch material in Mustang's face, and hid his own countenance behind it. Ed then took the opportunity to blink rapidly and scrub the wetness from his vision.

"Oh, come one, Fullmetal," the colonel said, this time sincerely, as he sat back in his soft military-issued chair. "It won't take long. A week at most. And I'll give you three to finish it. Take the chance to visit that girlfriend of yours down in Resembool. You'll have plenty of time to fight, break up, kiss, and make up with her again, and whatever else your generation considers 'romance'."

The bait fell short. He tried again.

"Besides, won't it be nice to be back in your element? You grew up a country bumpkin, didn't you? You'll know how these guys think. Especially since there's practically no difference between the two of you."

There was a terrible crunching sound.

"I'll go get Al. We'll catch the next train to Isfara and head east from there." Edward placed the now demolished folder, which he had crumpled and rolled in his automail fist, on the oak desk, turned around, and walked out of the colonel's office without waiting to be dismissed. Only when he was gone did he allow himself to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead and gingerly deliver the mashed case file to the waste basket.

It was supposed to be a lull in the roaring current of their recent missions.

Ed would admit it to nobody, but he enjoyed the clearness of the air and the openness of the fields, not to mention the home-cooked meals they received from the families whose farms had been struck by the animal thieves. And the colonel had been right, it didn't take them more than four days to find the pillagers' hideout, and with minimal effort. The farm robbers turned out to be impressively stupid men, what with their holding pen for the animals a mere cave by the river, which was not at all big enough to accommodate the number and size of the creatures being kept there, and the distraught brays of the cows and sheep echoing from the tiny tunnel, and the stench of manure permeating the air.

It was supposed to be an invitation to a pleasant reprisal.

The men ran, of course. As soon as Al's steel suit of a body reached the threshold of the cavern, the two scraggly men in stained overalls posted there as guards started howling to their cohorts about a giant gray bear eating the livestock. It was hilarious how the other pillagers had arrived with pitchforks and cheap handguns, only to break tongs and waste bullets on this apparently invincible bear that walked on its hind legs and tried to convince the gunmen not to shoot for their own sake ("It'll ricochet, you see, they can't go through, so they'll just bounce off," Al sais as the men shot upon seeing him, and then almost immediately began rolling on the ground, cursing in pain caused by their own ammunition).

Needless to say, the brother subdued them quickly. Within the hour, the thieves were bound in rope meant to tether cows and horses. Their own rope, Edward thought satisfactorily. Ed demanded to know the pillagers' number. He received the answer of six. Ed counted five men tied down.

"Where's the other one, ass face?" he growled, grabbing a random captive by the collar of his shirt and tugging forward. The man spluttered out some words in a thick rural accent, and it took Ed a few seconds to translate the garbled recording into understandable speech.

"Lil' Jon's on feed duty. He's getting' the hay from t'other cave upriver."

Edward cursed and threw the man onto the clay floor of the cave, making sure he landed face-first for good measure.

"Keep an eye on these ones," he said to Alphonse, jerking his thumb at the five apprehended thieves. "I'll go after Little Jonny, or whatever the hell his name is."

They met each other halfway. Jon was stumbling his way along the riverbank, a square bale of hay resting between upon his back, held in place by straining arms stretched over his shoulders. The man, or boy, he was significantly younger than his fellows, looked up as he sensed Ed's presence. He stared ahead dumbly, as if Edward was a particularly odd-shaped tree, then his eyes widened at the realization of his discovery, which inspired him to promptly throw the hay over his head, turn on his heel, and run in the direction he then found himself in. Edward guessed the hay was meant to deter him. If so, Jon was a terrible throw. The bale landed three feet from where it was set free into the air and rolled pitifully onto its long side with a puffy hiss of dead grass. Ed left it there and went after Jon, who was running northeast, across a shallow part of the river. The cow stealer led the alchemist on a chase that brought them to the very edge of the woods the river fed and the pillagers' cave was nestled within. Edward thought that maybe Jon was hoping to lose him in a sprint across the flat, unobstructed fields that lay beyond. Neither of them made it that far.

As he was about to make the leap that was the transition from forest to meadow, Jon's knees suddenly buckled in mid-jump, sending him sprawling into the ivy that grew along the edge of the tree line. Ed snorted in amusement at the boy's clumsiness and was trying to think of a nice, stinging remark to throw at him once he'd reached the fallen pillager, when Edward's own feet ceased to exist beneath him. Izumi Curtis's training immediately took hold and Ed's hands shot in front of him. The maneuver was meant to have the alchemist's palms meet the ground, then have the muscles of his arms redirect the momentum from his fall into a propulsion that would bring his body upright once more. Instead Edward's left arm burst into fiery pain that stole his guard completely, and Ed found himself collapsing into the loam head-first. In a last desperate attempt to save his dignity, Ed threw out his right hand instinctively for some form of purchase. He was rewarded with a face full of mud, a bleeding left arm, and a fresh new pain from his right shoulder. He rolled in the mulch of soil, plants, and dead leaves until he could see Jon. The boy lay staring at him, face devoid of expression. Jon blinked, and Edward glared.

"Don't you dare say a word."

Jon shook his head (a police interrogation would later reveal the boy's sprained ankle, even if he had tried to resume his escape, little would have come of it) and dropped his head to the ground, pointing his gaze towards the sky. This was how Al found them twenty minutes later.

It was supposed to end there. An insignificant come, catch, and go operation, leading to nowhere and leaving nothing memorable.

It didn't.

XXX

"It was _not_ funny, Al."

"I'm not laughing, Brother."

"It was _not_ funny."

"You're right, it wasn't."

And yet the entire staff of the East City Command Center wouldn't stop laughing. Ed had quarantine himself for the next week after the assignment, resigning himself to the military apartment he and his brother shared until the itchy pink patches on his face had healed. He hoped that wherever that punk Jon was, he had a good blistery rash buried beneath his ankle cast where he couldn't scratch it.

The colonel had nearly fallen out of his chair when Edward had entered his office for his follow-up report. It had taken every ounce of self-control (and Alphonse's steel grip) to keep him from tearing the amused smirk from Mustang's face. Al ended up being the one describing the outcome of the assignment, though it may not have been necessary, only Truth knew whether the colonel actually heard him over his own laughter and Edward's eccentric threats. Upon their departure, Roy had offered a piece of advice: "Next time, Fullmetal, remember that the diaper goes on the opposite end of your body." Al had grabbed his brother and yanked him out of the office and down the hall before he could retaliate.

It was a common practice for farmers to border their property with coils of barbed wire wrapped around the trunks of the trees or nailed to wooden posts placed intermittently along the path of the desired barrier, forming a wiry fence of sorts. It was a very good way of keeping wolves, foxes, and feral dogs from helping themselves to the livestock while they were grazing. It was also a good way of inflicting pain upon one's fellow man. In the event of Ed's and Jon's encounter with the invention, a portion of the iron string had rusted from years of exposure to the elements, and a good tug had broken the weakened bond holding the wire to its restraints around a nearby tree. Consequently, Ed's skin caught on the tiny thorns tied into the line, and his subsequent rolling to right himself brought the loose wire around his arms and chest, leaving him hopelessly entangled and pierced in dozens of places, sore in pride and body. Al, worried by his brother's prolonged absence, had stepped outside of the cave to watch for Edward's return with Jon, heard the pained swears in his brother's voice, and had run, clanking, to where the alchemist and thief lay sprawled together. Al had wasted no time in freeing Ed from the prickled snare, and begged to let him carry his brother back to the cave. Edward refused, insisting that Jon was the one needing to be carried due to his swollen ankle, and Alphonse complied only because it was obvious that the boy couldn't walk on his own. Edward had planned on the fiasco vanishing into the realm of darkest secrets. Instead the entire military knew. Ed blamed Jon and his blabbering mouth.

Alphonse, however, won in a contest of talkativeness between the two.

"Brother, you're bleeding."

"You should really wash those scratches, they'll get infected if you're not careful."

"Ed, stop scratching, you'll only make it worse!"

Worn down by Al's motherly pestering, Edward finally allowed his brother to wash the rips in his skin and smear ointment on the rashes he had gotten from the poison ivy growing around the barbed wire fence. He nearly transmuted his brother into a giant trash bin when Al insisted on disinfecting his scratches with rubbing alcohol.

Alphonse's armor body made him very hard subdue, and so Ed spent the following days sulking, refusing to speak to his brother and keeping his ravished arms and stomach safely tucked away in a hunching slouch.

That morning, however, Edward was lying flat on his back in his bed.

Ed's throat was hurting. It had started hurting two days ago and had refused to let up despite his patient waiting. The other night he had woken in a cold sweat, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, and though he couldn't remember any, he had suspected bad dreams to be the cause. He began to question those suspicions throughout the day. He did not stray far from his curled pouting position on the bed, where he sat reading alchemy books and pointedly ignoring Al, but his pulse didn't lessen, and its aching pounding shook through his body as he turned page after page of arrays. And now, as he lay prone, he was aware of his muscles' constant twitching.

They had done so more often than was normal for the past few days, he admitted to himself, and he had simply let it pass without a thought. He couldn't do that now. The twitching had evolved and now, every few pulses, the muscle would stay that way, tightening into a cramp, and Edward would have to flex and stretch the muscles to get them to loosen. He contemplated telling Al. He also contemplated the stupidity of the idea. As if Al needed to know that he had a Charlie Horse. Besides, it was probably just the strain that the automail put on his body that made it act that way. He grimaced as the tiny bit of bicep he had left on his right side added to the bizarre minute contractions permeating beneath his skin. The trim of flesh that was glued to the metal of his automail port was hurting badly. It was a hot sort of pain, like that bit of his body had been exceptionally exposed to summer heat, and yet tingled as if he had slept on his port and the stump had been denied proper blood flow.

But his ports hurt often, and for various reasons, and he gave it little meaning. No, it was probably just dehydration or something dumb like that. It would fix itself in given time.

His brother's knock at the door made him jump. Ed's calf pulled tight in a vicious cramp and he swore.

"You okay, Brother?"

"Yeah, Al, I'm fine." Ed brought his knee up to his chest and his calf relented.

"The colonel called. He wants to talk to you tomorrow. He didn't sound happy. I think it might be because of the way you've been slacking this week."

"I have not been slacking! I've been…relaxing." He said this as he scratched the fading remnants of a rash below the collar of his shirt. "Besides, Colonel Bastard told me I had the next two weeks off."

"You'll have to take it up with him, Brother. I can't do anything about it."

"Okay, okay, I'll talk to him before lunch, all right?"

"Okay then, Brother. Are you hungry?"

"No."

"I'll go make you a sandwich."

"Thanks, Al."

Edward's fingers started twitching spasmodically as Alphonse clanked away from the bedroom door.

XXX

Edward kept his head down as he trudged his way to the Command Center. Whenever he saw the tips of shoes that weren't his own would appear in his view of the sidewalk, he would swerve out of the way to avoid a collision. The method seemed to work, he'd only bumped into two people so far. One of them hadn't particularly minded when Ed's downturned head buffeted them in the side. The other one… Edward may have knocked himself into their ribs a second time, possibly intentionally. But he did not show his face and kept his visage in the shadow of his hood, which, despite the warmth of the day, Ed had pulled up over his head. Or at least, it was supposed to be warm.

"It's going to be kind of hot today, Brother. You sure you want to wear your coat?"

"Have to. My trademark."

"And why are you mumbling? Mom always told us that it's polite to speak clearly when you're talking to someone. And to look them in the eyes!"

Edward's response had been a half-hearted shrug and a tug on the hood of his coat.

"Kind of hard to do that with you, Al."

"What?"

"Nothing. Be back tonight." And he'd sauntered out of the dorm and down the hall, leaving his younger brother in a state of confusion and annoyed worry. Al always worried about Ed.

He started up the steps to the doors of the Command Center. When he was halfway up, his right leg turned stiff and he fell with a slurred curse. He struggled back onto his feet and shook his leg viciously, as if something had crawled into his pants from the cuff and he was enthusiastically trying to expel it. His leg was hard and floppy, and if anything the cramp only worsened. Ed cursed again and dragged himself to the top of the stairs and through the doors.

When a passing sergeant met his gaze and adopted an expression of alarm, Edward realized that he had forgotten to replace his hood. He dropped his head and threw the scoop of fabric over his hair and quickened his pace. The perplexed sergeant watched him go, surprise still covering her face.

XXX

"Colonel, Alphonse Elric's on the line. He wants to speak with you. Something about his brother."

"Give me the phone, Lieutenant."

Hawkeye handed him the receiver and Mustang held it to his ear eagerly. Any reason to defect from his paperwork was a welcome one. His lieutenant colonel cast him a glance of disapproval as she returned to her desk. Roy destroyed any sign of thankfulness within his body language and replaced with blank indifference, then focused on the sound of Al's static, tinny voice rather than Riza's condescending glare.

"Yes, Alphonse. What is it?"

"I'm sorry to bother you at work, Colonel, I know you're busy."

"No trouble at all." Hawkeye grunted a warning and he quickly checked himself.

"What can I do for you, Alphonse?"

"Well, it's Brother. He's acting strange today. Well, stranger than usual."

"Your brother is incessantly 'stranger than usual', you'll have to give me more detail than that."

"Oh. Well, um… he spent a long time in the bathroom this morning-"

Mustang's ears turned pink.

"Alphonse, I really don't think-"

"No, not like that! He was muttering to himself about something and whenever I asked him if he was okay, he would just say, 'uh-huh', and then he would keep muttering. And then he wouldn't look at me-"

 _CATHUNK!_

Roy nearly dropped the receiver. Fullmetal was swaying at the threshold to his office. He limped into the room, leaving the door wide open; where his face should have been was a balloon of red cloth with golden bangs of hair hanging from underneath.

The entire regiment had ceased all activity and stared as Edward hobbled towards the colonel's desk. The boy seemed able to sense the attention he was attracting and shrunk inward, hunching his shoulders and lowering his chin to his chest. Hawkeye was the first to collect her bearings.

"Edward-"

"M'fine."

"You sure, chief? You're not cold or nothing, are you?" Havoc said, eyeing the red hood covering Ed's face.

"No. Okay."

"Colonel? Colonel, are you there?"

Al's voice echoed throughout the room, the receiver hanging in Mustang's neglected grasp. He quickly snapped his hand back into position.

"Yes. Yes, I'm here. I'll keep my eyes open. If I find anything out, I'll let you know."

"But Colonel-"

Roy threw the receiver at Hawkeye. She caught it deftly and replaced it without taking her gaze away from Edward.

"Hello, Fullmetal."

"Colonel."

There was an awkward pause.

"You called me here?" Ed's words were soft and slurred, as if he was trying to speak without moving his lips.

"I did. You returned from your last assignment a little over a week ago, correct?"

"Yes. Reported in."

"You did. But you never came in for further orders."

"You said to take two weeks off."

"I suggested you take the opportunity to visit your hometown before returning to the Command Center. Instead you came straight back and reported in. As long as you're within city limits, I expect you to be on duty. Understand?"

Edward's shoulders arched slightly and his reply was spiced with the beginnings of a temper.

"Can't I take time off in the dorms?"

"No. The military apartments provide accommodation to those actively serving in the military. I'm not going to let you take up space meant for hardworking soldiers coloring pictures and listening to the radio explain the fundamentals of counting to the number four."

"What 'bout Al?"

Mustang had to consider the question before answering.

"In all technicality, Alphonse isn't even supposed to be on military grounds. The only reason why he's permitted anywhere on base is because he has you as a military escort. If you want to waste the precious resources of the state by sleeping in a bed that doesn't belong to you, your brother might as well head back to Resembool. I'm sure that mechanic of yours would be willing to put up with him."

"S' not fair." The words were barely discernible, if Roy hadn't been waiting for Ed to say something he would have mistaken the slithery spat for a sneeze.

"I don't care if it's fair or not, it's an order from me, and it _will_ be followed."

"Bas'ard."

"Keep talking like that and we will have a problem, Fullmetal. Now, let's discuss your next assignment-"

"No."

Someone in the room stifled a gasp, but not before it reached the colonel's hearing. Mustang glanced briefly at Breda's reddening face, then brought his attention back to the subordinate before his desk.

"Excuse me?"

"You promised me two weeks off." The boy's hands were halfway curled into fists.

"And I said, not while you're on my base."

"T' hell with what you say."

Roy stood up so abruptly that his chair fell over backward behind him.

"Fullmetal, you-"

"Colonel!"

"What?!" Mustang snapped, swiveling to meet Hawkeye's terrified face.

And he heard Edward fall to the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

**YOU GUYS CRASHED MY EMAIL! IT'S LIKE I DID SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIKE OR SOMETHING!**

 **Not like that'll ever happen. Sorry you guys got all excited for something good from me and what do I give you? THIS PIECE OF CRAP!**

 **Oh well. The damage is done. I'll sit here quietly for Hiromu Arakawa or the cast from Funimation! to get me with their pitchforks and their molten tar. You guys can go do whatever.**

* * *

"You promised me two weeks off."

"And I said, not while you're on my base."

Edward could feel the blood rushing through his head, his heart rate roared in his ears as a nonstop thrum, the beats so fast and close together that they all blended into one. Sweat trickled down his spine and his shirt was pasted to his stomach. His jaws grated in his skull, the muscles turning from thick rubber to stone as rage brought adrenaline into his veins.

The colonel could belittle and penalize Ed to his heart's content, it was part of the arrangement; Ed would rebel, as he was naturally inclined to, and Mustang, being of the superior rank, would be obligated to remind Edward and his temper of their place in the matter. But Al… no one made threats against the Fullmetal Alchemist's baby brother without proper dues. And Edward would make Mustang pay in full.

"T' hell with what you say."

Roy jumped to his feet. Ed knew he had because, though he couldn't see the man with his face angled towards the ground, he heard the rumbling crash of the wheeled military desk chair falling backwards and into the wall.

"Fullmetal, you-"

Edward was ready for him. He would punch that bastard's nose into the back of his head with an uppercut from his right fist, then he would turn around and make his way back to the dorms as fast as his uncooperative legs were willing to carry him, grab Al and board the next train out of East City. He didn't care where they ended up as long he didn't see the colonel's stupid mug for at least a month. He'd been promised two weeks leave from word, and dammit, he was going to get those two weeks one way or another. He made to pull his right shoulder back, preparing the muscles in his back to add their weight to the punch.

Hawkeye saw the boy's shoulder blades pinch together, then Ed's spine suddenly bucked as his back muscles twisted.

"Colonel!"

"What?!"

 _THUMP._

XXX

Edward was not sure what had happened. His brain had sent the order to his arm to draw back, when his neck, back, and shoulders spontaneously decided to fuse together. His spine and legs began to curl in opposite directions, as if he was trying to touch his head with his toes from behind himself. Ed's knees hit the floor painfully and he felt himself flop onto the floor, like a turtle flipped upon its shell.

He tried to speak. His mouth wouldn't move. His face was retreating across his head, he could feel his eyes stretching open and his lips yanking up in a manic grin. He tried to straighten his legs. They wouldn't listen.

And then, as if to spite their master, all the muscles in his body increased their efforts. It was invisible hands had taken hold of his body in various places and were squeezing, working together to force Edward's body to fold itself in half from the wrong side.

Pain, sharp and particular, sprouted within his muscles. The sore ache of lactic acid blossomed in his back and legs, and the inside of his chest started to feel as if a block of ice had materialized on top of his heart.

Edward realized he couldn't breathe.

XXX

Roy looked at Edward, looked at Riza, who looked back at him, and they both looked back to Edward. Fullmetal was writhing like an upside-down beetle, his back jumping off the ground and his legs pushing between the floor and his body. His eyes had rolled into the back of his head and his teeth were clenching together so hard the colonel was surprised they hadn't crushed themselves.

"Roy? What-"

Hughes was standing in the threshold. His question vanished as his bespectacled eyes fell to the foot of Mustang's desk. He had been carrying a stack of papers under his arm. He dropped them, creating a white pond of pages in the doorway and threw himself to the floor.

Hughes landed beside Edward's shaking body with a jarring thud that would have made Roy wince under any other circumstance. The lieutenant colonel snatched Ed up into his arms and pinned him against his chest, turning himself into a human straight jacket. Ed flapped about, his head bouncing off of Hughes's shoulder. He looked like a prize bass struggling to escape a fisherman.

"Roy! Snap out of it! Roy!"

Mustang blinked slowly before meeting Hughes's gaze with his own. He stared back stupidly. Maes Hughes's face was blank of every motion. His eyes were hard and unwavering, and for some reason Roy found that unnerving, and that prickle of discomfort tore his daze apart. He blinked once more, shook his head to clear it of any lingering fog, and began studying the physical build of his subordinates.

"Fuery."

The sergeant major jumped at the sound of his name and focused his wide, frightened eyes on the colonel.

"S-sir?"

"You're strong and lithe."

"Y-yes, sir?"

"Run as fast as you can and get the medics. I don't care what they're doing or who they're treating, pick up the entire unit and drag them here if you have to. That's an order!"

Fuery's expression softened from nervous to understanding, then hardened to determination.

"Yes, sir!"

The sergeant major went from motionless to sprinting instantly. Rather than turn into the hallway, he ricocheted his body off the doorway and disappeared behind the wall, his slapping footsteps fading into the sound of Edward's helpless flopping.

"Hawkeye!"

"Yes, sir?"

Mustang gestured towards the scene on the floor.

"I want you to… be a woman."

"Understood, sir."

Riza took a step forward before dropping to her knees beside Hughes. Maes's shirt was wet with spit and sweat, but if he knew this, he gave no sign of it. He was transfixed on the boy in his lap and Mustang noticed that, most likely because of Hughes's instincts as a father, he had begun rocking Edward in his arms, as if he meant to offer the boy solace through the motion. Hawkeye guided the strands of hair plastered to Edward's face behind his ears. She frowned.

"Maes, his lips are blue."

Hughes only shook his head, not taking attention from Ed for a moment.

"There's nothing we can do about that except pray for the medics to get here soon."

XXX

After what felt like an eternity that was actually only five minutes, Edward's body was completely drained of energy. His spasmodic twitching slowed to trembling, and finally his muscles slumped into stillness, and Edward sank into Hughes's chest. It was as if he was a puppet and his director had lowered his strings to the stage and left him there. No one moved for at least thirty seconds, except for Maes, who continued to cradle the boy.

"He's breathing normally again."

Roy nearly fainted from relief. Riza's shoulders sagged as she let free the breath she had been holding.

The sound of multiple shoes hitting the floor of the Command Center made them look towards the threshold. A red-faced, panting Fuery appeared, followed by the medical unit. One of the nurses carried a collapsible stretcher under his arm.

"Sorry it took so long, sir," Fuery puffed. He nodded gratefully to Breda, who handed him a paper cup full of water, and emptied it in a single swallow. "They're all so heavy; I had to drag them down the stairs one at a time."

XXX

Someone was maneuvering his arms out the sleeves of his coat. The air was cool on his dripping skin. His shirt was pulled up over his head and a wet cloth drawn over his chest and face. Edward's limbs felt as if they were made of stone-besides, of course, the ones that were-and his head rang with a sharp pain. Instinctively, he opened his eyes, and immediately shut them once more as light from the ceiling stabbed the back of his skull.

"Ed? Can you hear me?"

As brief as his glance had been, someone had noticed the movement of his eyes.

"Edward? It's Maes, can you hear me?"

"Maes."

It was a mumbled whisper. His lungs seemed reluctant to donate air for speech and his mouth stuck closed. His feeble response was met with multiple exhalations of relief.

"Good. Good, that's good." Apparently Maes thought it was good.

"Al?"

"We're getting him. Roy's on the phone with him right now. Would you like some water?"

"No."

Hughes ignored his protest and cold tap water was poured between his lips. Edward choked, and though he managed to swallow a few drops, the rest dribbled from his mouth and down his chin. For a terrifying moment, Ed's throat was stuck closed. He took a gurgling gasp and oxygen sucked into his wind pipe.

The cloth was reapplied to his face and he felt soft fingers brush his cheek.

"Hawk… Eye?"

"I'm here, Ed. Fuery got the doctors. They're calling an ambulance."

Edward's brain was sluggish and weak at the moment, but he recognized the implication of Riza's words quickly.

"No."

"No what, Ed."

"No hos-pit…" He couldn't get his tongue to form the rest of the word, but Hawkeye understood.

"Edward-"

"No."

"You need-"

"No!"

"Ed, please-"

"No!" The boy made to sit up. A firm hand-Maes-fell on his right shoulder and easily held him down.

"Don't try to move. Just relax, okay. We'll handle it."

But Edward did not want them to handle it. He tried a second time to pull himself up. He succeeded only in pressing his sore automail port into Hughes's hand. Stars burst behind Ed's eyelids and he reflexively tensed at the pain. The muscles in his shoulder and abdomen tightened into a grip that refused to let go. They screamed their abuse to his brain, but Edward couldn't do anything for it. His shoulder was engulfed in a numb, burning raze and Ed couldn't stop himself from whining.

"Edward, what is it?"

The question was unnecessary. Ed's left hand snaked, unbidden, to his shoulder and covered it in a crab-like shelter, his fingers spread and digging into the flesh, but the palm curved and untouched. Almost immediately, he felt a second hand take hold of his wrist and try to pull his arm back to his side.

"Don't touch."

"Ed, if there's something wrong-"

"Don't touch it."

Hawkeye knew she could easily lift his hand away from his shoulder, his arm was spent, exhausted beyond usefulness. But his protests were lined with something-desperation, a devout insistence-that kept her from bringing herself to do it.

One of the medics, who was standing between Hawkeye and Hughes, posted there to monitor Fullmetal's condition, joined them on the office floor.

"What's going on?"

Edward's blood turned cold. He didn't recognize the voice.

"There's something wrong with his right shoulder, but he won't let us look at it."

That was Hughes.

"Here, let me."

Hawkeye's hand disappeared from his wrist.

"No."

"It's okay, Ed-"

An unfamiliar, unsympathetic grip wrapped around Ed's wrist and yanked his hand away from his shoulder. Fingers brushed the lip of his port, sending flaring, sparking pain throughout his shoulder and neck.

"NO-"

"Brother?!"

Edward's head snapped backward and his arms and legs bent into his torso. The bruised, worn muscles contracted again, and Ed's entire being was made of angry tissue that was determined to tear kill itself, and yet lamented maniacally its reluctance to die.

"Oh my God, Brother! What did you do to him?!"

There was a terrible crashing, but it was undiscernible compared to the shrieking that filled Edward's body and bubbled through his clenched teeth.

"Alphonse-"

"No! I'm not listening to you! What happened? What did you to my brother?!"

Alphonse.

His brother, Al.

"Aaagh."

"Brother?! It's me, Brother, I won't let them near you."

Edward felt himself transferred from a soft, bony pallet and onto a cold, hard hammock.

"Aagg… Agggll…"

His jaws were melting, along with his limbs and torso. Ed felt like he was made of one Mrs. Hughes's pie fillings; hot and mashed, and the tiny, mutilated bits that were him were being held together only by the sticky sauce they were swimming in. If Al let go of him, he was sure he would splatter onto the floor into a thin, unrecoverable slop.

"The paramedics are here!" Falman called from his place outside to office, Roy had positioned him there for the very purpose of announcing their arrival.

"Al…"

"Brother?"

Ed fought with his slackened mouth to pronounce words that were understandable.

"No… hos… pit…"

"I know, I know you don't want the hospital…"

"Alphonse, you have to him to the doctors now."

Roy's voice, gentle but not negotiating.

"Al… please… don't want…"

"They have to take him now, you have to let go of him."

"No... Please, no…"

The suit's iron arms held the tiny body closer and closer to its breastplate, Edward was nearly flattened against the tempered metal. Ed slowly trailed his fingers above his head until he found his brother's broad, rounded elbow and meekly clung to the joint. He'd used his automail arm to do this, his flesh one was hidden somewhere in the cocoon of Al's hold, and his shoulder ached with an intensity that summoned a moan that he barely managed to stifle. All that escaped was an almost non-existent squeak.

"Your brother wasn't breathing a few minutes ago, Alphonse," Riza's voice was as light as a wind chime in a gentle breeze, but it was a knife slashing Edward's hope to ribbons. He knew he'd lost, and his brother's empty body started at her words.

"He wasn't breathing, and there was nothing we could do."

"What about… that breathing in the mouth thing? Couldn't you have done that?"

"His lungs were being crushed by his diaphragm. Resuscitation wouldn't have done any good. But the hospital has ventilators that will keep him breathing and medicine that can lessen his pain."

"But he won't get any of those things if you don't let go of him, Alphonse," Roy, sounding confident now, added to Hawkeye's reasoning.

"Al… please…"

The iron suit was silent.

"What if… what if they hurt him?"

"They won't hurt him, Alphonse."

"The medics were hurting him!"

"It was an accident. No one means your brother harm."

Silence again.

Ed could hear people talking in lowered voices and the telltale screeches and tapping sounds that come from preparing equipment of one kind or another.

"Can I… can I go with him?"

That's not up to us."

Al's embrace loosened slightly, and the difference served to fuel Edward's mounting panic.

"No…. no, Al…"

"We have to put him under," said a voice Ed didn't know, but sounded feminine.

"Under what?" Despite the slackening, Alphonse's grip on his brother was still strong.

"He'll only be asleep. The drug will keep him from seizing in the ambulance."

Edward shifted in Al's arms.

"No! Al!" The protest was on the border of being a sob.

Ed's neck was forcefully but tenderly moved so that his face was no longer shadowed by Al's breastplate.

"It's okay, Brother. You'll just be taking a nap, that's all."

"Don't want…. A nap…"

Edward felt rough plastic lines pushed onto his face. The sweet smell of some sort of sedative tickled his nose, and, before his consciousness was properly robbed from him, Ed launched himself out of Al's arms.

He did not get far. Edward's back muscles pulled impossibly, agonizingly tight and he howled. With a sickening clunk, he fell back into his brother's hold and jerked about wildly as his body fell into another flailing fit. The back of his head was grabbed and the plastic mouth piece was shoved over his nose and chin. Al was squeezing his hand in a leather gauntlet, offering him promises of safety and reassurance. Ed could not hear him over the screaming of the blood in his head, and could not see him through the blinding pain of his complete self.

At some point, though he wasn't sure exactly when, all things ceased to be.


	3. Chapter 3

**YOU GUYS CRASHED MY EMAIL AGAIN!**

* * *

"Does he have any allergies we need to know about?"

"No."

"Is he on any medication?"

"No."

"Has he ever been in a condition similar to this one?"

Roy heard the clink of metal on metal and felt Al's empty eyes sockets examining his hunched shoulders.

"No. Not… not really."

Colonel Mustang was Edward's state assigned guardian. For all his self-assertion, Ed was still a minor by law, and according to such laws, every underage citizen of Amestris was required to have the enlisted support of a capable and willing adult. Naturally, this adult was almost always a parent. In the absence of such, the second most common candidate was a close relative, and in rare cases, a friend of the family's.

The Elric brothers, however, had no one of the kind. Their mother had been dead for a fair three years now, and their father had left the household when they were barely more than infants. Since neither of their parents had had any siblings, this meant they had no aunts or uncles to take them in. Pinako Rockbell, a nearby automail engineer, who had watched their mother grow from girl to woman, give birth to two sons, then die of the plague when her children needed her most; had been more than willing to offer the boys shelter.

Then the brothers suffered their "accident", Edward decided to become a State Alchemist, and the Elrics left their home and guardian behind. Despite the ever present qualms surrounding certifying a child as a State official, no one could deny the boy was incredibly talented, and the military, ever desperate for strong recruits, had slobbered from their hunger Ed's instatement. So a deal was struck: Edward Elric would be the youngest State Alchemist in Amestrian history. To appease the child welfare superintendents, Ed had been placed within the responsibility of a financially secure and experienced superior: Colonel Roy Mustang himself. Edward was not simply a member of the military-he was stuck with it. For all Roy knew, even after Fullmetal filed his resignation papers, Mustang would still be listed as his legal guardian in court records. And Alphonse, of course, would join him. Not that the colonel was opposed to the situation. All Al needed was a can of wax and a canister of oil to be considered well cared for.

Which brought Roy's mind back to the present.

He was supposed to be the one answering the question, but Al, logically, was the only one who properly knew all the information the doctors needed for patient documentation, and so Alphonse was the subject of the nurse's interrogation. Mustang would sign the form to verify its contents.

The colonel was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his fingers laced together into a cushion for his chin. His eyebrows were drawn together and his forehead was wrinkled. Anyone else might have thought he was annoyed by his subordinate's fall in health. But Hughes had seen the posture many times before. He knew his friend was worried. And, if Maes had interpreted the way Roy's mouth was pressed into the holster of his fingers correctly, frightened.

"He'll be fine, Roy."

Mustang's reply was a muffled grunt.

"The beds here are sanitized and there's top quality medication already prepared for administration. Plus, the doctors here are trained professionals, not a group of university volunteers whose only apprenticeships were to a bunch of hand-me-down biology course books. I bet Hawkeye will come out from behind that curtain any minute now to tell us the chief's up and kicking again."

Riza, who had not been given any indication that she had fulfilled her order of "being a woman" was in the care unit with Edward. The practitioners had agreed that it might be beneficial for Fullmetal-as well as for his caretakers-if was greeted by a familiar face once the sedatives wore off. Al had wanted to stay with his brother, but his broad, metal body would have proved an obstacle in the care unit.

"I don't understand." It was hardly above a whisper. Hughes leaned closer to his friend.

"What was that?"

"I don't understand." Roy lowered his hands to his lap, still sitting with his back curved protectively over his head. "I've seen him come in from missions with stab wounds. I've seen him grazed by bullets. I've seen him covered in more blood than his undersized body could possibly contain. But whenever someone mentions stitches, or clinics, or even physical exams, he starts yelling and flailing like Elicia whenever you say the word 'no'." Hughes's silence led him to realize the implication in his words and he quickly tried to redeem himself.

"Oh God, Maes, I'm sorry-"

"For what? It's the truth. Besides," the lieutenant colonel smiled softly as he thought of his beloved daughter, "there isn't much difference between the two. Especially where you're concerned."

Roy cast his friend a questioning look. Hughes's smile broke into an amused grin.

"'My State Alchemist's the youngest in the world! He can beat the snot out of a ripped boxing champion without breaking a sweat! Why, my Edward Elric is so-"

"Wait. Wait, a minute." Roy was sitting up now. "When have I ever said anything like that?"

Maes proffered his left fist and began listing various events and places, using his uncurling fingers to keep count.

"At State meetings. At orientations. Whenever there are young, attractive, single women-"

"I have never-"

"When you're at the bar buying drinks for those attractive single women. While you're walking those attractive single women back to your house. Intermittently while you and the attractive single women are having-"

"MAES!"

"What are you two talking about-Colonel, are you all right? Your face is completely red-"

"Nothing, Alphonse. It's nothing, we were talking about nothing."

"Are you sure-"

"NOTHING."

The steel alchemist was suddenly distracted by something in the opposite direction of Mustang's chair. Hughes was sniggering. He was silenced by a scowl from his commanding officer.

"About what you said earlier," said Maes, the levity gone from his expression, "about how you didn't understand Ed… do you remember when you, Hawkeye, and I went to that gigantic State-funded school in Central, to talk to the kids about 'becoming a hero of the military'?" Hughes allowed himself to inflect a trace of sarcasm as he repeated the phrase they had been issue to deliver to the children of the school.

Roy's only response was an audible gulp. He remembered. He remembered how Maes and Riza had had to guide him through the hallways, out the doors, and into his own car.

"Come and meet the Flame Alchemist, Hero of Ishval!"

It had been all over the walls, in the restrooms, on doors, always in happy, disgustingly bright shades of blue, yellow, and green; like invitations to a Sunday picnic in the spring, until Roy began to grieve for the trees that had been sacrificed to make all of those idiotic posters.

He remembered the innumerable, tiny, sticky hands grabbing onto his pant legs, his coat, tugging on his arms, asking him questions in their high-pitched, overly enthusiastic voices.

"Can you blow up my homework?"

"Do you spit fire out of your mouth? Are you dragon?!"

"Do you explode people?"

"Can you teach me to set fire to my teacher?"

"My mommy told me you killed lots of people in the war? Was it fun?"

And Roy had stood there, a statue made of flesh, silent, eyes ahead, oblivious to all things around him, until his lieutenants had both slipped an arm under his own and walked him out of the building, waving to passerby and smiling beatifically as their colonel, pale as sheet, struggled to keep the free lunch of dried meat in soggy bread he had been given from leaving his stomach.

"You pretend you hate kids. You harass the chief to prove your point and you won't have dinner with my wife and me because you 'don't want to frighten Elicia'. But that's not it."

Hughes's hand was on Mustang's shoulder and he had adopted Roy's bent sitting position. To an outsider, it looked as if they were discussing confidential military matters. Maes had perfected this technique long ago, so that he could comfort his friend when he needed it most, thought Roy wouldn't realize it until later, because it had yet to occur to him that the emotion he was showing could be seen as weakness. And even then he wouldn't feel that his public image was at all threatened, and again, he wouldn't know why. Though his commanding officer, Maes Hughes was cleverer than the colonel, in his own discreet way.

"You don't hate kids. You're _terrified_ of them. Because you're most influential experience with them was in Ishval, in the war. Where they died. You can't stand to be around them, because they remind you of so many things you'd rather forget."

He couldn't forget their eyes. Their wide, pleading eyes that melted in their faces as he snapped his fingers, the smell of their flesh burning and their ear-piercing screams as they died. For their mother. For their God. For him to stop. And he hadn't stopped. He'd left them behind in a trail of singed gore, their bodies nothing but ashes, and their faces nothing but brands scarred into his memory.

And their ghosts crawling through his sleep.

"Edward's most influential experience in a medical facility was after he and Al tried human transmutation. After Ed lost his arm and leg and his brother lost his entire body. And after that? He had automail screwed onto his stumps. Grown men can die from the pain of automail surgery. Edward was only _eleven_. How old were you when Ishval happened, Roy? Twenty-four?

"Ed pretends to hate doctors and needles and physicals because he doesn't want anyone to know how scared he is. Especially Al. He's supposed to be the big brother, after all. The great 'Fullmetal Alchemist' and all that crap. But right now… when he's like this…"

"He can't pretend he's not scared," Roy finished for him. "And that scares him even more."

"Brother's kind of stupid like that." Both officers jumped at Alphonse's voice echoing from within the armor. "He thinks that because I can't feel pain or cry or laugh like I used to, he shouldn't be able to either. He thinks it's his fault that I'm in this body." Al patted his breastplate with a leather gauntlet.

Any further conversation was stifled by the appearance of Riza Hawkeye. Her face was devoid of feeling as she moved from behind the curtains that screened the emergency care area from the line of chairs, two men and one boy. She looked at each of them in turn before saying two words.

"He's awake."

XXX

He first sensed that he was lying upon a surface. He then realized that the surface was a soft one, which led him to logistic that if he was able to feel, must be conscious. As if to confirm his calculation, his ears began picking up sounds: the clinking of instruments on metal tables, the murmured conversation of colleagues, the barely audible tapping of a person's shoes as they walked passed. It occurred to him that his eyes were shut. He opened them.

The light was unexpectedly dim, but Edward was thankful. His head was pounding terribly. From what he could tell, the ceiling was a simple affair, white paint, plaster, and drywall. The pungent reek of antiseptics made his nose sting.

"Edward?"

A body leaned over his own. He blinked sluggishly, his eyelids did not seem to want to part with each other.

"Edward, its Hawkeye. Do you understand me?"

Edward managed a grunt. Forming a verbal response took more energy than he possessed at the moment.

"You're at the hospital, Ed. You've been asleep for about an hour."

"Al."

It was a breathy whisper, and although she couldn't hear his voice, Riza instinctively knew what he had said.

"Yes, Alphonse is here," she said, giving the tiniest of nods as she spoke. "The colonel and Hughes are, too. Would you like to see them?"

 _I want Al. Captain Ass-Head can take cyanide pills for all I care._

"Yeah."

Hawkeye vanished from his side, and he was alone in the darkened medical unit. Edward became aware he was wearing nothing but hospital gown. A lightweight blanket had been thrown over him. It was surprisingly warm for its thinness, and Ed fell into a doze. He wanted to talk to his brother, but his body wanted to sleep. When he first heard Alphonse call his name, he thought he had dreamt it.

"Hey, Brother." Al spoke in a gentle, quiet, falsely cheerful way. Edward would have been annoyed, except that he found the tone oddly soothing. At a later time, he would realize that it had been meant to do so.

"Guess what? When I told the nurses that you don't like needles, they decided not to give you any IVs! Isn't that great?"

Someone shifted uncomfortably. Ed noticed Colonel Mustang standing off to the side in the darkened unit. His face was unreadable, but Ed knew Mustang well enough to know that when he was deliberately soulless, he was thinking about something he didn't want the outside world to know.

"Is it bad?"

"Is what bad, Brother?"

"What the colonel thinks. Is it bad?"

The clipped, vague sentences were little more than ravings to Alphonse. Roy shifted again, moving his weight from foot to the other, expression still blank. Al noticed the movement and realized what his brother was wondering.

"Did you want to say something, Colonel?"

Silence.

Al made a small sound of curiosity and turned his attention back to Ed.

"They haven't touched your shoulder, either. I told them you don't like strangers handling your automail. The doctors here sure are nice."

Mustang shifted a third time.

"Alphonse, stay here." Without further preamble, Roy slid behind the curtain and out of sight. His departure was so sudden that Edward was too surprised to register his absence until a full ten seconds after he'd left.

"What?"

"I don't know." Al shrugged his iron shoulders. "Maybe he has some colonel stuff to do. I can't see Lieutenant Hawkeye letting him get behind on his paperwork for any reason."

XXX

"Sir, the doctor needs to speak with you."

Riza's voice had drifted to his ears from the other side of the curtain. It was a whispered message, and Roy understood that Hawkeye did not want the Elric brothers to know where he had been called away to. Not yet, at least.

"Alphonse, stay here." Without waiting for a reply, Mustang passed through the slit in the screen and out of the unit. He had to blink once or twice to adjust his sight to fully lit hospital corridor. Riza stood to attention before him. He gave her a nod and she started down the hall, leading the way to the specialist's office.

XXX

The doctor was a young man. Roy estimate he was in his twenties, but which year of that decade he had the pleasure fulfilling, the colonel couldn't tell. There was an equally young woman acting as his assistant nurse; she stood behind the desk beside her superior, with an open file in her hand. Riza noticed that the girl's white hospital uniform ended far above her knew. Hawkeye glanced surreptitiously to her commanding officer. He was staring ahead, jaw set and gaze unfocused. She saw no sign that he had seen the nurse's attire. Even so, she cast the woman a warning glare and shifted closer to the colonel's side.

The doctor looked at the two military personnel in front of his desk, sighed, and started riffling through pages of paperwork, as such people are wont to do when they are searching for the proper way for explaining something difficult. Before the man could take a breath to speak, Mustang asked, "How long?"

The doctor stopped in mid-riffle and stared the colonel, nonplussed.

"I'm sorry?"

"How long does he have?"

Riza could feel the tension in Roy's nerves, it radiated off him in sparking waves.

"How long until what, sir?"

"How should I know?! You're the doctor!"

"Sir, please."

Roy glanced at his lieutenant, but said nothing.

"Well," the doctor said, all sense of ceremony lost, "we don't need to perform any bloodwork to know what he has; even if we did, the results would all be normal, except for maybe his phagocyte count, which is only natural in the case of infection. The first thing I should probably ask you about would be the last time Mr. Elric received his immunization shots-"

"How am I supposed to know that?!"

Again, the doctor stared at Mustang, but this time there was a hint of disapproval in the corners of his eyes.

"You _are_ the boy's guardian, are you not? As such, his health and the preservation of his health ought to be monitored and dealt with as needed by you."

"Well, yes, but-"

Hawkeye stamped on his toe and his mouth snapped shut.

"Continue, please, doctor."

The man nodded his thanks to Riza and obliged.

"Is there anyone who would know the specifics of Mr. Elric's medical history?"

"His brother," Hawkeye spoke up before Mustang could make himself look any more foolish. "Shall I fetch him, sir?" She directed the question to the colonel.

Roy hesitated, not sure if it was safe to speak. When he did, he did so cautiously.

"Yes, Lieutenant, if you would be so kind."

He realized too late that he should have offered to go in her place. Now he was alone in the office with the condescending doctor silently scrutinizing him.

XXX

The doctor nearly jumped out of his chair in fright.

"What the-"

"You wanted to talk to me, doctor, sir?" Al's innocent voice rang forth from armor.

The man realized he was gawking with his mouth open. He remembered his manners, closed his mouth and cleared his throat.

"You… you are Mr. Elric's brother?"

"His younger brother Alphonse, that's me."

"His _younger_ brother?!"

Mustang allowed himself a discreet smirk of satisfaction at the doctor's flabbergasted reaction to Al's iron body. Maybe the man would think twice before chiding a person of power, now that he knew what lay in that person's arsenal.

The doctor quickly composed himself to his best ability and attempted to focus on the matter at hand.

"You… you wouldn't happen to know what date your brother had his routine vaccinations, would you?"

"Vaccinations? Like shots, you mean?"

"Yes. Exactly that." The man nodded emphatically, as if his safety depended on Al's pleasure of knowing he was right.

Alphonse was quiet for a moment. Mustang recognized it for self-preparation, as the young alchemist commonly did before addressing a subject he found particularly unappealing.

"Well… Brother's never liked shots. He's always hated getting them. The only time he was actually convinced to get them… was when Mom took us to Granny's one time…"

"And how long ago was that?"

"I don't know… I was really little, so I don't really remember it, but… I think he was two, or three…"

"And he's thirteen now, according to information form that was provided?"

"Yes. That's right."

The doctor sighed.

"A person must receive a regular set of immunizations every ten years. Especially a tetanus immunization, it's the most important."

"Why? What makes this tetanus shot so special?" Alphonse spoke with a voice of one who already knows the answer to one's question, but is still compelled to ask it.

"Because tetanus is one of the most undesirable diseases in medical history, and I'm sorry, young Elric, but… your brother has contracted it."

* * *

 **You guys are too smart for me. Most of you figured it out before Chapter 2. Not that I was secretive about or anything... Oh, and the last part, about it being one of the worst diseases known to man? That's true, I didn't make it up. Google at your own risk. The stuff it gives you is pretty nasty.**


	4. Chapter 4

Edward was alone.

Alphonse had left with Hawkeye to talk with the doctors about something. He had promised to be back soon, and Ed didn't doubt him, but solitude is solitude, no matter its duration. He decided to take the opportunity to sleep while he waited for his brother-or anyone at all-to come stare at him with eyes round with pity.

His rest was deep and dreamless. When he awoke, it was as if his consciousness was snagged by a sharp, unwelcome hook and pulled from the depths of oblivion he had been so warmly cocooned within. Instinctively, he searched for the source of that hook. He found it in the nurse sifting through the contents of a folder. She was sitting in the chair Al had occupied when he'd been in the unit. The folder lay open on her lap. She seemed to sense his eyes on him because she raised her head and met her gaze with his. She smiled pleasantly.

"Oh, dear. It looks like I've woken you."

It did, indeed.

Normally, Edward would have answered as stupid a statement as that one with a sarcastic agreement. Instead he simply stared silently.

The nurse stared back. Ed pictured the two of them, he on the hospital bed and she in the chair, staring at each other while the walls around them crumbled to dust. The image was ruptured a sudden twinge in his jaw. To his horror, Ed felt the corners of his mouth pulling back of their own accord. He quickly rolled onto his side, body screaming in protest, so that the nurse couldn't see his face.

"I bet that's uncomfortable," she said, and though it was unnecessary, he covered his face with his right hand. Edward felt his eyebrows being yanked up his forehead. Vainly, he tried to force his countenance into a somewhat normal position with his metal fingers. The muscles in his face were stubborn and refused to be manipulated. Frustrated, he slapped his hand onto his forehead and pushed the flesh down towards his eyes. Nothing came of it but the contraction of his right triceps. Pain burst from his port and sizzled along his neck to his brain, and Ed couldn't stop the hissy yelp from escaping him.

The nurse stood up, the chair legs scraping the floor, and pried his automail hand from his head. Out of habit, he snatched it out of her grasp, and the movement made him dizzy agony. His left arm wriggled free from beneath his side and cradled its fellow, gripping the upper joint as if to keep the limb still.

"The distortion of the face is normal for your condition," said the nurse. She sounded like she was reading a paragraph from a textbook out loud. "If you want, I can give you a relaxant that would-"

"No!"

Edward swallowed thickly. He hadn't meant the word to come out so intensely. There was an awkward pause.

"Your shoulder seems to be troubling you." She seemed determined to keep his mind focused on all the hurting he was trying to ignore.

"No. Just… just go away. Please."

He added the mannerism for his brother's sake; Alphonse was always scolding him for his tendency to be impolite.

Another awkward pause.

"Well, then… would it be okay if I checked your heart rate? Typically, we would have the patient connected to a monitor, but the doctor thought it might give you a shock when the sedatives wore off."

Edward considered. Stethoscopes were cold, but that was practically the only negativity they had. They were never placed near his automail, and contacted his skin for only a few seconds at a time.

"…Okay."

Rather than unroll him from his curled position, the nurse simply worked around it. It was odd to have a complete stranger-a woman, no less-slip her hands under his shirt and touch his chest, but he did not react beyond thought. Her fingers were starkly warm compared to the icy listening piece of the stethoscope. She held it over his heart, mentally counting his breaths and palpations, then withdrew it, to replace on the opposite side of his body. Edward had always wondered why that was done. Presumably, if the practitioner was listening to one's heart through one's back, then he or she had already listened to one's heart through one's chest. Ed doubted that anything had changed in the seconds between the transitions of the listening piece from his sternum to his spine, but he kept silent. He suspected that if he questioned the procedure, he would receive a long, disinteresting lecture about the dynamics of the human infrastructure and the general history of doctoring. This was a caution that had been instilled in him by the antics of Major Armstrong.

The nurse removed the listening piece from his person and detached the instrument from her temples with a muted "hmmm" of concern. Edward didn't have to ask her the reason behind the noise, he could feel the speed with which his blood was flowing through his veins, and the overeager pounding beneath his ribs sent vibrations through his teeth. He watched the nurse warily, half convinced she would insist upon injecting him with a chemical designed to calm his rampaging heart. Instead she referred to the folder full of papers, pulled a pen from the lapel pocket of her uniform, and scribbled some notes on a choice page. She reviewed the sheet's portents for a moment, then turned her attention to Ed, pasting a smile on her face as their gazes met.

"I bet you'd like to get some sleep, wouldn't you?" Edward's relieved nod made her laugh softly in sympathy. "I'll leave you to it then. If you need anything, just speak up. There are nurses standing by at all times, and I'd bet they'd love the chance to assist such a handsome young man." She was gone, folder in hand, before she could notice the boy's reddening face. She had deigned to honor his request for withholding medication and had judged him to be a young man. Ed's surprise was so great, he could taste it in his mouth. Strangely, the flavoring was reminiscent of a freshly-baked apple turnover. Al was right, he thought, the doctors here were unusually considerate. He was asleep before any other thought could form in his mind.

XXX

"Linda," said the doctor, turning to his desk and his assistant behind it. "It has occurred to me that Mr. Elric is unattended at the moment, seeing as how his brother is here in the office. Could you go keep an eye on his condition?"

"Of course, Doctor," said the nurse, who efficiently closed the folder and weaved her way from behind the desk and passed the colonel and out of the room. Impressive, Mustang thought, watching her go. Her movements were immediate and satisfactory, her concentration complete. He needed more subordinates like her. Especially with those legs-

Riza flattened his already bruised foot into the floor. He winced and shot her a questioning glare. Her answering scowl instantly wiped the incredulity from his mind. Whatever he had done, according to Hawkeye's expression he'd deserved her stomp, and he did not feel the right to argue with her.

"Tetanus isn't a common disease, not since the introduction of the vaccination, at least. In fact, it used to be one of the greatest causes of death, as well as the most painful."

"It still is."

Roy hadn't been able to stop the words from leaving his mind. All eyes, flesh and soul, turned to him.

"You've seen it before?"

"I've seen people die from it. In the war."

Riza shifted closer to him, so that their shoulders were brushing. He didn't allow himself to show it, but he found solace in the contact.

Alphonse emitted a ringing, whooshing sound, the best imitation of a gasp he could manage. The noise caught the doctor's attention, ending his consideration of the colonel before him.

"I implore you, young Elric, don't worry. In the war they had little to no access to the materials needed for the proper treatment of this disease. But we have it here, and I will personally make sure your brother receives it."

Al studied the doctor's face and, finding sincerity in the depths of the eyes, he believed him.

"Yes. Thank you, Doctor."

"So what _is_ the treatment?" asked Roy.

The doctor nodded in approval to Mustang's inquiry. Roy subconsciously thought that he ought to be annoyed by this man's tendency to assert himself as mankind's disciplinarian. In hindsight, he would realize that, in all bluntness that was what any doctor had ever been.

"Tetanus is a peculiar condition. Rather than being caused by an infection of bacteria, the symptoms are the work of a byproduct created by the bacteria as they digest-"

"Digest? Digest what?" The doctor answered Alphonse's question truthfully, but not without sympathy.

"Their host. In this case, that would be your brother's tissue."

Mustang could have sworn Al's helmet turned green around the mouth.

"Unfortunately for the host, this byproduct is incredibly toxic-in fact, it is the most toxic known substance that is engineered by an organism. Only a few hundred bacteria can create enough toxin to kill a full-grown man-however, the body has ways of expelling the toxins to keep that amount from accumulating in the bloodstream." He amended the ending of his sentence in response to Al's horrified start.

"What does it… what does the toxin _do_ exactly?" said Alphonse, raking together any remnants of composure he had left.

The doctor took a minute to think upon the answer before giving it.

"Well, as far as reactions in the body go, relatively little. You see…" The doctor paused to think again.

"You see, muscles are made of fibers that are intertwined with each other, forming the stringy constitution of meat. Every one of these fibers is, to be honest, a tiny spring, and these springs each have two nerve receptors.

"When a muscle is stimulated, nerves send certain signals to these receptors, and in response to those signals, the springs shorten. Millions of springs, all connected and all pulling into themselves, is essentially what a contraction of a muscle is.

"Now, while one receptor accepts signals telling the springs to tighten, the second accepts signals telling the springs to loosen. These signals, of course, put a check on how long and how tightly the springs are coiled. What the tetanus toxin does is block the receptors that receive signals ordering the relaxing of the muscle. The only message the fibers can be given is that to contract. And without any indication to loosen at any point or time, they will continue to contract, harder and harder, until they are physically incapable of remaining coiled any longer.

"Think of it like a traffic light. The toxin breaks the yellow and red lights, so only the green light can give any direction. Cars will go speeding through the intersection nonstop because it is the only instruction they're given."

"You said 'until they are physically incapable of remaining coiled any longer'", Alphonse quoted the doctor perfectly. "What… what does that mean?"

Roy winced, lost in his memories of the war. Hawkeye cast him a concerned look but said nothing.

"I'm afraid it means exactly what it sounds like," said the doctor. "The fibers could coil so tightly that the connections between them snap, tearing the muscle and rendering it useless. Or energy could be consumed keeping the muscle contracted than can be produced through respiration, and fermentation can only do so much. So the muscle would simply go limp from lack of fuel."

"Or the muscles harden around the bone that supports them and crush it," Mustang added. The doctor and Al both stared at him, Al in disbelief and the doctor in resignation. "Or the victim suffocates. Or the victim goes into cardiac arrest."

"What?! But why would-"

"The heart is a muscle too, young Elric," the doctor explained as gently as he could. "And a person's breathing is orchestrated by a muscle called the diaphragm. When the diaphragm contracts, air is forced out of the lungs in an exhale. When it relaxes, air fills the lungs in an inhale. But if the diaphragm doesn't relax, then air can't enter the lungs at all, and a person can asphyxiate. In the matter of the heart, which is a stubborn organ and only takes orders from the pacemaker, it will be unwilling to remain contracted for more than a few seconds at a time. Still, though, the toxin can manipulate it, and it will be forced to contract more often than normal, resulting in a high heart rate-just like with your brother. This can exhaust the heart and deplete it of energy, and unlike other muscles, the heart cannot make due without energy made from respiration. The heart will begin to die, and when that happens, it is referred to as 'cardiac arrest'."

"So Brother… could have a heart attack?"

"Yes, he could."

"At the age of thirteen?!"

"Yes."

There was a terrible crashing sound. Alphonse had fallen into a state of shock, and his body had descended with him. He sat there, silent and bemused. The doctor let him be, allowing him to collect himself in his own time.

"How… how do we stop this? How do we get rid of the toxin? How do we keep him from dying?"

"Keep him in a calm, quiet environment. The lights should be low and there should be no sudden or loud noises. Speak to him gently. Make sure he eats and drinks, it doesn't matter what as long as he swallows it. Let him rest. Convince him to take his medicine. And above all, keep him feeling safe."

"But what if-"

"We'll have an oxygen ventilator close at all times; if he ever has trouble breathing, we'll hook him up to that. We have medicine to lower his heart rate and keep his muscles relaxed."

Silence. Horrible, awful silence.

"What about the toxin?"

It was Roy who spoke. The doctor turned his attention to the colonel slowly, reluctant to jeopardize the flimsy semblance of trust he'd formed with Alphonse by looking away.

"What about it?"

"Like the boy said. How do we get rid of it? How are you going to get it out of his nerves?"

The doctor sighed tiredly.

"We don't. It can't be done."

XXX

A familiar crashing woke him.

It was the sound of his brother's armor falling to the ground. In that instant, brain dulled by sleep, the only thing Edward knew was that his baby brother had fallen. So he ran to him. His entire being shrieked, but he ignored it, and continued to push himself to Al, to his little brother, who needed him. For how long he did not know, he lay there, fighting himself for Al's sake. And then he realized he was not running. He hadn't even left the bed. And all the air in the world had vanished.

XXX

"WHAT?!"

"Now, wait a minute-"

"No! You say you can help Fullmetal, that you _will_ help him, and now you're saying it's not possible?! What are you playing at?!"

"I meant it's not possible for _me_ to annihilate the toxin-"

"Then who?! Who can?! Tell me!"

"Mr. Elric."

"Brother?"

The rage faded from Roy as he realized what the doctor was trying to say.

"Fullmetal… has to sweat it out?"

"I would prefer the term 'perspire', but essentially, yes."

"How long will that take?"

"In all honesty, he's doing it now. In order to keep the toxins from damaging any more nerve endings, his will perspire almost constantly to expel it."

"What about the toxin that's already in the nerves."

"I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about that."

Roy roared with fury and lunged for the man. Riza caught him by the shoulders and pulled him forcefully towards her.

"Colonel! Listen to what he has to say!"

"When the toxin blocks the nerve endings, it destroys them," the doctor said calmly, despite Mustang's crimson face and clawing hands a mere foot away from him. "Mr. Elric's body has to break down the damaged nerves and rebuild them. Of course, such endeavor are pointless if the toxin isn't removed completely from his system."

"Brother has to get rid of the toxin _and_ build new nerves?!" Al's voice was weak, as if he didn't believe that there was anything anyone could say or do to make the situation worse. "That could take weeks!"

"Months," the doctor corrected him. "The process is a slow one. He will probably harbor symptoms for a while."

Al moaned.

"How did this happen? _Why_ did this happen? Why can't Brother just be left alone?!"

"The bacteria that causes tetanus survives anywhere exposed to the elements. Did or does he have any dirty wounds? Did he step on a rusty nail or was he scratched by a feral animal?"

"No. No, no he didn't-wait. We were on a mission in the countryside. And Brother… Brother got stuck in a barbed wire fence. He fell in a patch of poison ivy and wouldn't stop scratching. But I cleaned the scratches, I cleaned him up, he shouldn't... oh my God, he's automail…"

The doctor closed his eyes and nodded once.

"He could very well have been punctured beneath the edge of the port. That would explain the tenderness in his shoulder. It's probably where the bacteria that are producing the toxin have gone to ground. We have to-"

He stopped talking abruptly, his eyes riveted in the direction of the entrance to the office. Instinctively, all gazes followed his.

Maes Hughes stood in the threshold, bent double and resting his hands on his knees.

"Maes… I thought you were on the phone with your wife?"

Hughes ignored him.

"Do you… where is… ventilator! We need an air ventilator! Now!"


	5. Chapter 5

"I'll try to be home for dinner. If I can't make it, I'll grab something from the café down the street. Tell Elicia I love her. Yes, I love you too, Gracia. See you tonight."

Maes Hughes replaced the phone receiver onto its holster and ran a hand down his face tiredly. While Alphonse, Riza, and Roy had gone to check on Edward, he had gone to the lobby in search of a public phone. He had, naturally, called his wife and explained the situation to the best of his ability. Mrs. Hughes had immediately volunteered any assistance she could give. She, like her husband, were fond of the Elric brothers, as parents are made to appreciate the young. He had promised to deliver her message, and was now on his way to the emergency care ward to do just that. Employing the help of a passing attendant, he was guided to the medical unit in which Edward lay resting. Hughes sat in the chair next to the bed, watching the boy twitch involuntarily in his sleep and listening to the various sounds that are trademark to medical centers.

Maes slipped into a doze, leaning forward in the chair and resting his chin in his cupped hands, and resting his elbows on the edge of the bed. So, when he was brought to full awareness by a ringing crash, his arms abandoned his head and his back jerked straight. He ended up nearly face-planting into the mattress and whacked his shoulder blades against the back of the chair within the same second. Instinctively, he looked around the unit to find the source of the disturbance. No panic ensued during the following moments, and the lieutenant colonel calmed, shrugging dismissively and turned to where Ed lay upon the bed.

"I guess someone dropped something-Ed?"

The boy's eyes were open and he stared blankly at the ceiling. He didn't seem to know Hughes was there. Maes thought the young alchemist to be in a state of wakeful sleep, that now that his subconscious senses had confirmed there was no threat present, he would close his eyes and continue to spasm as he dreamed.

"Al."

Ed spoke the one syllable of his brother's name, and Hughes knew what he was going to do before he did it.

"Ed, stay down, it was just-"

The boy ignored the hand Maes placed on his chest and struggled to sit up. He managed to pull himself halfway before his back began to arch against his will. To Hughes, it was like watching a vaulting pole bend under the weight of an athlete as they leapt: beginning as a solid line, then quickly bending as the athlete's weight pulled one end closer the other, and falling to the ground, forgotten, as the person lets go and completes the stunt.

But unlike the vaulting pole, Edward did not return to his original position upon descending. He simply bent further, until his head and his toes were the only parts of his body touching the bed, the rest of was suspended above it. A particularly vicious spasm ran down his spine and he jerked violently. The movement ruined his balance, and he fell sideways. Hughes caught him out of reflex, ignoring the fact that Ed's topple had been cushioned by the mattress. For the second time that day, Maes held Edward in his arms as the boy writhed uncontrollably, teeth bared and eyes staring, his arm trapped behind his back, his hand clenching and unclenching listlessly.

But only his left.

His right hand, devoid of nerves or fibers susceptible to the toxin, had somehow been subdued by its throttled master, and reached to his throat, fingers scrabbling around his drooling mouth. Hughes remembered the boy's blue gums in the office. Edward's body hadn't had a chance to properly recover from its previous deprivation of air. His face was already turning a dangerous shade of red and his fingers increased their efforts of stimulating his trachea.

"Nurse! NURSE!"

The curtain screen of the unit was yanked backward before he had completed his scream. Arms coated in the white sleeves of lab coat appeared, snatching Edward from Hughes's arms.

"He's not breathing! He wasn't breathing earlier and he's not breathing!" Maes babbled, his rationale dissolving in the solvent of terror. A fist grabbed his military uniform and shook him, dispelling the shrieking in his brain. He realized the nurse was male, and he held what looked like a pump from a giantess's perfume bottle.

"Go find a doctor. Tell them to get an air ventilator."

The man's voice was deceptively peaceful, but the urgency he felt was clear in the one-handed shove he directed into Hughes's chest. He needed no further urging. Maes burst from the unit and his eyes landed on a sign on the wall, next to an intersection in the corridor. He saw that it "Emergency Physicians Offices." He threw himself towards it.

XXX

For five seconds, Al, Riza, Roy, and the doctor gawked at Hughes as the man panted for breath. Then a steel Argonaut nearly flattened him as Alphonse ran, clanking, out of the room. The doctor dashed after him a second later. Maes, still panting, forced himself upright and looked to his commanding officer for instruction. Roy shared glances between his lieutenants. Then, without a word, he departed the office at a fast walk. Hawkeye and Hughes followed him quickly.

XXX

"BROTHER!"

"Young Elric, please-"

"NO! LET ME SEE MY BROTHER!"

"If you go in there while the technicians are working on him, you could-"

"I'LL HIT YOU! I'LL HIT YOU IF YOU DON'T LET ME SEE HIM! I SWEAR I WILL!"

"He is quite sincere, Doctor," said Mustang, appearing from behind the suit of armor with his subordinates in tow. "He has already assaulted one physician today, and if you ask him, he won't be able to tell you what felt like, because Alphonse all but demolished the man's face."

The doctor visibly paled and hurriedly stepped aside. Al, despite his threat of violence a mere moment ago, thanked him and vanished into the medical unit. The colonel followed suit, without bothering to petition the doctor for permission. The man didn't protest. He was too busy imagining a giant metal fist blunting his nose.

The manual respirator had been discarded upon the arrival of the industrial one. The doctor had sent his assistant Linda to fetch, having crossed paths with her as she delivered his afternoon coffee to his desk. Edward's body lay crumpled upon the bed, eyes closed and horrifically still. Al watched nurse hold the oxygen mask over his brother's face, while another monitored his pulse, maneuvering her stethoscope over his chest as she searched for the clearest echo of his heart she could find.

"Is he-"

"He's not dead. In fact, he's breathing on his own right now. The air in the respirator has extra oxygen in it, so it'll help him recover faster."

The nurse could have said he was administering a medication that would meant to revitalize Edward to a condition of flawless health for the gratitude Alphonse expressed to him. The nurse's cheeks were tinted pink with flattery by the time Al could no longer think of ways to say "thank you" that he hadn't already said.

XXX

It took Edward some time to realize he was conscious. He peeled his eyes open, surprised by how badly he immediately wanted to close them again and sleep. There was hand behind his head, pressing his mouth and nose into some sort of container that poured sweet air down his throat, filling his lungs despite their inability to collect oxygen for themselves.

"Good morning."

He didn't recognize the voice. He did, however, know the tinny ring that followed.

"Brother! You're awake!"

Ed tried to lift his left hand, meaning to reach for his brother. His palm and fingers managed to rise, but his wrist and arm didn't leave the bedsheet. Leather fingers wrapped around his own brushed his knuckles with a soft, empty thumb sleeve. Ed tried to call out his brother's name, but all he managed was a pathetic squeak.

And then something cold touched the inside of his elbow.

"What are you doing?" Al's grip on his hand tightened.

"Your brother's heart is beating too quickly. This is an anti-arrhythmic that'll slightly slow down his pulse."

The alcohol-saturated cotton was removed and Edward's exhausted brain finally understood what was about to happen.

"No!"

The physicians ignored him. Ed tried to raise his automail arm and slap anyone who came too close, but his shoulder was especially tender from the events of the day and the pain was enough to make him moan. To his horror, the sound he hadn't the strength to stifle encouraged yet another nurse to encroach. He heard footsteps as someone crossed to the other side of his bed and he felt gloved hands take hold of his port. At the same moment he felt the sting of something sharp and thin being forced beneath his skin.

XXX

Fullmetal suddenly began flailing, kicking his legs wildly so that the hospital blanket covering his body broiled like over-cooked porridge. The nurse administering the injection managed to deliver the medicine and remove the syringe before Edward swung his arm around in an attempt to punch them. Alphonse, from whom Ed had wrenched his hand, caught his brother's fist and held it in both of his own. And then the shouting started.

"Stop! Stop it! Stop-"

"Mr. Elric, we are trying to-"

"Doctor, please, give Brother a minute-"

"Alphonse, let the doctors do their job-"

"Somebody hold him down while I take a look at his shoulder!"

"NO! Don't touch-"

"QUIET!"

Silence filled the unit.

All eyes were upon the colonel.

Roy glared at each person in turn, except for Edward, who trembled upon the mattress as he succumbed to another, albeit feeble, spasmodic fit.

"You." Mustang turned to the practitioner working the air ventilator. "Keep him breathing," he said, nodding to the bed. The nurse followed the direction of the colonel's gesture dumbly, then started as he saw Ed fighting for breath and promptly shoved the oxygen mask over the boy's mouth and nose.

"You." Roy faced the exasperated doctor. "Come with me. Lieutenants Hawkeye and Hughes."

"Sir?" they said simultaneously, standing to attention.

"Make sure no one so much as looks at Fullmetal except for Alphonse and the man handling the ventilator." The colonel glared at the now frightened-looking doctor once more before leading the way down the hall.

XXX

"I am trying to help-"

Roy raised his hand in a halting gesture and the doctor's sentence went unfinished.

The two men were standing in an unoccupied unit situated on the far side of the ward from Edward's. From such a distance the boy and those around him could not possibly hear their discussion. And if Mustang had his way, as he usually did, they never would.

"The boy has automail," he said, flatly and impersonal.

The doctor made an angry huffing noise and shook his head in perplexity.

"I can see that! What are you trying to prove, stating the-"

And then his mind finished digesting the colonel's words.

The _boy_ had _automail_.

The doctor blinked, realized he was gawking at a military official with his mouth hanging open, closed it, swallowed, and spoke in a voice hoarse with chastise.

"What… what kind of an accident was he in to… to be injured so badly at such a young age?"

"That is classified information. All you need to know is that Fullmetal was an eleven-year-old child when he underwent surgery for his automail limbs."

"The damage an experience like that can have on such an underdeveloped mind… has he gone through any kind of therapy for the trauma? Who does he turn to for comfort?"

Roy was surprised by the amount of effort it took to ignore the doctor's questions.

"I know you're trying to fulfill your position as a doctor and treat his illness, but Fullmetal has yet to recover from the memories of his procedures. If you attempt to sedate him, inject him, anything that might remind him of the surgery, he will panic and fight you-"

"Then what are we supposed to do? This is an emergency ward, Colonel! It may be quiet now, but wait until tonight, when the drunks and collision survivors and psychotics come in. If we don't sedate him, he'll be in constant opisthotonos! He'll be dead by midnight."

"Can't you put him in a private room?"

The doctor shook his head.

"It's not safe. He needs to supervised twenty-four seven. He starts tetanizing unexpectedly, someone needs to be there to administer relaxants and operate the ventilator. If he's in a room by himself, we'd have to organize a post schedule among the physicians, and we need all of our medical personnel on stand-by in case of an emergency. I won't allow a patient to die on the operating table because we were short one technician. We need him here, where he can be easily reached at any time by anyone, and he needs to be tranquilized."

"I won't let you do that."

The colonel and the doctor stared at each other, each daring the other to look away first. The contest quickly proved to be a stalemate.

"I understand you only want what's best for the boy. And I commend you for that," the doctor said, eyes still locked adamantly with Roy's. "But if he is recuperate without the influence analgesics, he has to be kept in an unchanging, noiseless, environment, with little lighting and a caregiver who is able and willing to stay by his side constantly."

"Fine, then." Mustang said his next four words without thinking. "Give him to me."

For the first few seconds, the doctor didn't react. Then his eyes slowly widened, and his mouth fell open. He made a sound, as if he meant to speak, but his voice seemed caught in his throat. He closed his mouth, swallowed, and tried again.

" _What?!"_

"I said-"

"I know what you said!" The doctor's voice was high and hoarse. "You… you… that's ridiculous! You can't-"

"I'm not married. I have no children. My house is as silent and boring as they come."

"Oh, that's all well and good! But you'd need medicines! Anti-toxins and anti-arrhythmic-"

"Which I will receive from you. Heart rate medication can be taken be taken orally, can it not?"

"Well, yes… but the anti-toxins can't! And without them more of his nerves will be damaged and his recovery will take longer."

"Then I'll give it to Fullmetal however it needs to be given. I'm sure he'll be much more willing to cooperate with someone who doesn't wear a hospital uniform or tries to vegetate him."

The doctor's face turned bright red.

"Well… you'd need a ventilator! And don't think I'll provide, this hospital needs every single respirator in working condition it has!"

"How about one that _isn't_ in working condition? Would you lend me one of those?"

"Ha! You must be joking! How in the world do you plan on using broken equipment?"

"I don't. I know someone who'll make it get it working better than before it broke."

The doctor, flustered beyond belief, sported the look of someone who had just lost a considerable amount of money in a gamble he had been sure he would win, and was now desperately trying to prove that he had been cheated.

"You'd have to be near him at all times."

"Then I will."

"You'd have to help him eat-"

"I will."

"Change his sheets and help him bathe-"

"I will."

"You say you will. But what if you _can't_? You don't know how to operate a ventilator, do you? And what about your military duties-"

"I have a team that I can call on for any reason at any time, and they will do what I tell them to do and when I tell them to do it."

"And what about me?" The doctor's eyes narrowed and he unconsciously stood straighter in an instinctive attempt to appear intimidating. "What if _I_ refuse to do what you say? What if I refuse to let you have the boy? What if-"

The collar of the doctor's uniform suddenly tightened around his neck. He found his face centimeters away from the colonel's, so all the man could see were two very big, very furious, very black eyes.

"You won't. Because I am Fullmetal's guardian and commanding officer and you cannot do _anything_ to him without _my_ permission. Because I know people, and I can have your license revoked. I can have you indicted. I can make it so that no clinic or center will hire you. So, if you like life the way it is, I suggest you do what I say. Because when I give an order, I damn well expect it to be followed."

XXX

Edward slept in a ball-like position, his limbs, flesh and metal pulled protectively into his body, his head tucked into his chest. Al rested a hand on his brother's side, and though he couldn't feel, he could see the leather fingers rise and fall along with Ed's ribcage as he breathed. No one dared speak. Earlier, one of the nurses had sneezed, and the sound had caused Ed to stir slightly. Al had fixed the unfortunate physician with such a long, eyeless stare that noise itself had ceased to exist in the unit thereafter.

The footsteps drumming up the hall were ignored until Mustang passed through the screen.

"Colonel?" Alphonse kept his ringing voice to a low whisper. Roy didn't respond. He watched Edward breathe, and though Al could tell he was thinking, he couldn't discern what about.

"Hawkeye."

"Sir?"

"Bring my car around to the front of the building, and make sure the back seat's open."

"Yes, sir."

"Wait."

"Sir?"

Roy cast his gaze around the unit. He counted only one lieutenant present, and about to depart.

"Where's Hughes?"

"He's on the phone with his wife, sir."

"Again?"

"Yes. He's arranging for Gracia to bring dinner to your house. He thought it might help make your first night with Edward a little easier."

"Oh. All right, then."

Riza pulled the curtain aside.

"Wait, _what_!?"

"Maes stood guard while you and the doctor spoke, sir. He wanted to lessen the chance of your conversation being heard by unwelcome ears, and he was worried you might set the good doctor's hair on fire."

Hawkeye stepped out into the hallway before Mustang could question her further, letting the curtain fall softly back into place behind her.

"Um, Colonel?"

"Yes, Alphonse?"

He was going to guess Hughes had reported the outcome of his discussion with the doctor to everyone in the unit. Except, maybe, for Ed, who had clearly been asleep for some time.

"I just wanted to know… Did you mean it? What you said? About Brother?"

Something flashed across the colonel's face: Al barely managed, but in the second it was there he saw sadness.

"Yes, Alphonse. I did mean it. Fullmetal is my subordinate, and I always look out for my subordinates."

 _And all of this is my fault._


	6. Chapter 6

In the mind's eye, one might have pictured a straight-backed, stern-faced Roy Mustang carrying a limp Edward Elric in his arms through the hospital doors, a steel giant and a sniperess following close behind, while the intimidated staff watched in helpless awe from the threshold. One might have found the actuality a tad anti-climactic. While the idea was most appealing to him, the colonel knew he couldn't just take Fullmetal and leave. Without proper documentation that the patient had been withdrawn from the facility at the behest of his guardian, Edward's absence could have been reported as a missing-person case, or even one of abduction. Roy, if found in the presence of said missing person, would be liable to charges of neglect and misconduct for denying his subordinate medical attention.

So Roy stood and waited, watching the boy twitch and squeak as he slept, half-expecting the doctor to simply not prepare the release forms and efficiently trap in the emergency ward. If so, Mustang planned on being trapped with him.

Despite his resolve, Roy was not a man of inaction. He pulled Ed's sheets up to the boy's neck and tucked the edges in. He rested his elbows on the mattress and rested his chin on his hands, then straightened and placed his hands in his lap. Alphonse observed silently, and found no surprise that the colonel loathed the desk-restricting task of filing paperwork. Maes, having finished briefing his wife on the state of things, joined them, and immediately began telling them about something his wife had told him about something Elicia told her. Mustang filtered his friend's voice into background noise, so when the amiable chatter suddenly ceased, he instinctively turned to see the cause. The doctor stood, half in and half out of the medical unit, his arm holding the curtain out of the way, and looking rather meek. He seemed to be awaiting permission to enter. Roy gave him that permission, waving in, and the doctor stepped forward, letting the curtain to fall back into place behind him. He proffered his left hand, which held a sheaf of papers. Roy accepted them without a word, although inwardly nonplussed. He had meant to shake the earth beneath the man's feet with his words during their earlier conversation, certainly, but the doctor seemed to have been shaken clean out of his wits.

"It's ready for you."

"Excuse me?" Mustang didn't look up from filling out the release form.

"The air ventilator that you requested. It's ready."

"Good. Alphonse?"

The colonel had explained the situation with the respirator to Al while they had been idle.

The armor emitted a grunt of assent and exited the unit.

"Is this it?" he heard Al's tinny voice echo. The doctor must have nodded, for there followed the nostalgic rubbing sound of chalk against a hard surface, then the crackling that came of the activation of a transmutation circle.

"Is it working now?"

Any further conversation Roy didn't hear. He was distracted by the sound of a heavy sigh, followed by the rustling of tumbling sheets. Edward was sitting up in the hospital bed, eyes droopy with sleep. He took in his surroundings, blinking confusedly, until he belatedly became aware of Mustang's presence, and settled his watery gaze.

"Col…?"

Roy quickly set the half-completed forms and pen aside.

"Yes, Ed. I'm here."

"We… we still here? In the… doctor?"

"Yeah, we're still in the hospital. But not for much longer. As soon as I finish these papers, we're leaving."

"Leave?" The boy's eyes lit up with a sort of giddy hope.

"Yes, leaving. I'm taking you away from the doctors and the needles and all that crap."

Edward's brow furrowed, his expression a mixture between puzzlement and salvation.

"Colonel Bas'ard… Save me from…"

"Go back to sleep, Ed." Roy was worried that if he kept trying to voice thoughts dulled by unconsciousness, Edward would hurt himself.

"Go back… sleep…" And his eyes melted shut and he slumped forward. Roy gently caught him by his good shoulder and guided him onto his back. Roy's hand turned slick with sweat.

XXX

Alphonse and the doctor were gone longer than he had anticipated. Mustang had long since completed Edward's release forms and Hughes finally ran out of things to tell Roy about Elicia that he hadn't already said. The hospital bed was drenched, as was the small body upon it. Once or twice, Edward wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his sweaty hand. The motion was floppy and in vain. Roy was considering petitioning one of the nurses for a wet cloth when the doctor decided to present himself.

The question "what took you so long?" was forming in the colonel's mouth; it was stifled by the doctor procuring a small white bag, the sort one would expect to receive a prescription from the local pharmacy in. His suspicions were confirmed by the man's explanation.

"These are antiarrhythmics and diazepam. The bottles are labeled so you can tell which is which. They're both in capsule form, so if Mr. Elric displays signs of discomfort, all you have to do is have him swallow one of each, with water. Don't ever let him swallow them dry. Be careful to keep the dosages a few hours apart, these aren't the strongest chemicals, but that's no excuse for carelessness. I've also included a small supply of syringes and tranquilizers… in case he enters a state of ophistotonus where his breathing is inhibited or his body begins to damage itself. The amount per dose is labeled on that bottle as well."

Roy listened silently, organizing the instructions in his brain and filing them to memory. As he did so, it occurred to him that these were not simple over-the-counter drugs, and would undoubtedly demand a significant price.

"So… how much do I-"

"Nothing."

Mustang immediately began to calculate how he would withdraw the amount of nothing in Cenz from the military's compensation department. It took him an embarrassing five seconds to realize exactly what it was the doctor had said.

" _Nothing?!_ What do you mean _nothing?!_ "

The doctor seemed to consider his answer before speaking.

"That boy of yours. The young Elric-Alphonse, I mean-has made his way throughout the entire hospital and repaired every single piece of broken machinery he has found. He even fixed that clock in the breakroom that was stuck continuously ticking the same second repeatedly throughout eternity."

It was obvious the man had been quite irked by the issue of the broken clock for some time.

"Mr. Elric's brother has just saved us thousands of Cenz in repairs and replacement shipments. In doing so, any bills Mr. Elric currently or in future owes this facility have been paid ten times over. If we are to be strict to the market, _we_ should be paying _you_."

Mustang stared. He blinked. He wet his lips.

He couldn't think of anything to say.

XXX

"And this controls the pressure of the air coming from the tank… that should be it. Is there anything you're confused about?"

Hughes and Mustang shook their heads. One of the technicians was explaining how to operate the air ventilator the hospital had given Edward on loan. It was a surprisingly simple device: an oxygen tank, present for obvious purposes; the coiled, rope-like tube that connected the tank to the face mask, and the various knobs of various sizes throughout the entire mechanism that controlled the rate of its function. To be honest, neither officer had actually understood half of what the technician had been saying. Roy was tired and wanted to go home, and Maes wanted to be with his wife and daughter. They trusted their instinct to guide them in the occurrence of an emergency. After all, their instinct had kept them alive throughout the war. They placed their faith in little if nothing else.

The technician glanced at each man in turn, feeling the awkward need to be useful yet not knowing how to use himself.

"Do you… need me to show you how the syringe dosages are given?"

"No, that's all right, your superior has already provided," said Roy, and he and Maes made to leave the conversation.

"Well… could I help you with-"

"No, thank you, we're fine."

"What about-"  
"Okay, Tomas, you've done enough."

The technician balked at the sudden appearance of the doctor. Roy narrowed his eyes at in reaction to the arrival. It was a quizzical expression rather than suspicious. It seemed to Mustang that the man had been waiting at a polite distance for his underling to complete his presentation before making himself known. The doctor, sensing Roy's assumption, locked gazes with the colonel and performed the slightest nod.

He wanted to speak with Mustang.

In private.

"All right, Second Lieutenant Hughes, I want you to assist in the delivery of the ventilator to the car. I'll meet you there with Fullmetal in ten minutes."

"Yes, sir." Maes had seen and interpreted the doctor's body language in tandem with Roy, and he knew his colonel knew this, and so Hughes left his response terse and without question. It would have been a bit awkward to have Maes standing there, staring at the passing staff, doing nothing and clearly having no solid reason to be where he was. Not to mention more than a little intimidating. Such a task not only kept him busy, but got him out of the building, enabling personnel-military and medical-acting efficiently.

For the second time that day, Roy Mustang found himself in an uninhabited medical unit with only the doctor for company. He wished to finish this conversation as swiftly as possible, so he initiated it as soon as they were hidden by the screen.

"Is there something wrong?"

The doctor started at the inquiry, throwing his hands in the air in a placating gesture that ultimately failed its purpose.

"Oh, no, nothing's wrong! Well, except for the fact Mr. Elric is ill, but other than that-"

"The point, if you would, sir."

"The what? Oh, yes! Of course! Absolutely!"

"Are you sure everything's all right?"

The man was sweating. Not nearly as bad as Fullmetal, but the temperature of the ward was not what Roy would consider sauna worthy. The doctor nodded his head vigorously."

"Yes! I assure you, there is nothing to be immediately alarmed about. It's just that… well, it's just that… I'm not sure how to say this-"

"Explain it to me systematically." Mustang had discovered in the early years of his career that the easiest and most productive way to word a particularly uncomfortable message was in the form of the process. This proved no exception.

"Well, you see, sir… Colonel Mustang that is… the stomach... I mean, the digestive tract is assisted and surrounded by muscles: the abdominals, sphincters that keep the movements of peristalsis in check, and such… and well, in Mr. Elric's condition, those muscles are a bit… unpredictable. They'll relax and constrict without warning. Basically, what I'm trying to say, is… if and when those muscles either squeeze his intestines and the sphincters become limp and don't fulfill their purpose… I'm afraid there's a chance you could end up with a bit of a… mess."

It took Roy a full thirty seconds to properly process the meaning of the doctor's words. Upon completion, the colonel felt his dignity and prestige drop from his chest, past his feet and into the ground far below. He found himself standing with a hand pressed over his face, as if he could somehow dull the taste of mortification in his mouth by covering it.

"Oh… oh God…"

"Unfortunately, there's nothing I or anyone else can do to alleviate this… issue. Even if Mr. Elric was drugged to keep his stomach muscles from contracting in such a dramatic way, he would have just as little control over them, if any control at all, as they'd be limp and paralyzed."

"Oh God."

"I should also probably warn you, judging by the severity of his condition when such a… happening will occur, he may need some assistance with… making himself presentable once more."

"Oh God."

"I don't think God's going to offer a more pleasant alternative, Roy. You might as well stop petitioning him."

Maes dropped a hand on Mustang's shoulder. Despite the force of the action, Roy didn't react. His senses had been rendered numb. Hughes sighed exasperatedly.

"Look, Roy, I've got a year's worth of diaper-changing experience under my belt. If Ed does anything you don't want to deal with, just throw it my away, okay?"

"Oh God!"

Roy's hand moved from his mouth to his eyes. The mental image Maes had planted in his mind was beyond revolting.

XXX

Mustang refused the gurney the staff had offered. To accept would have meant enduring the complications of loading Fullmetal onto the stretcher, wheeling the stretcher through the halls and down to the parking lot, and then lifting him off the bed and into Roy's car. And Roy was done. He did not specify to himself what it was exactly that he was done with, as any noun of the Amestrian language would have fulfilled that predicate adequately.

Alphonse hovered nervously over the colonel as Roy pulled the wet sheet off of Ed's dripping body. The boy grumbled drunkenly but didn't wake, instead curling into a tighter ball.

"He's shivering," Al noted worriedly. Alphonse knew trembling was caused by rapid and slight contracting and relaxing of the muscles to create warmth, and Edward's body would be desperate for it, seeing as how it was losing much of it to the expulsion of toxins. Roy frowned, remembering the doctor's instructions to keep Fullmetal warm.

Al watched in wonderment as Mustang shrugged off his coat, and draped it over Al's brother with a cloak-like wave. Roy pulled the uniform around Edward, stars and all, and hefted the boy into his arms. He nearly staggered under the weight. For such a small body, Fullmetal was heavy. He attributed it to Ed's prosthetics. Sympathy stabbed the colonel's heart as he realized Edward had to deal with the burden of his artificial limbs almost constantly, and that the pain such a burden would tear at his frame and bend his bones. He wondered if the pain was the reason for the boy's characteristic hostility.

Ed made a soft snuffling sound and shifted in Roy's grip. Mustang desperately tried to adjust to the movements to keep from dropping him. Edward ended up pressed against his superior officer's body, his head resting on Roy's chest, and snoring quietly. Mustang blinked, studying the oddity he was holding, then raised his eyes to Alphonse. The armor, of course, had no expression, but Roy wasn't taking the chance.

"Don't you dare say a word."

Obediently, Al remained silent.

XXX

Hughes, however, did not.

"Please, just one?"

"No."

"I promise to only show it to Gracia."

"No."

"What if I gave it to you, so you could keep it safe?"

"Absolutely not."

"Oh, come one, Roy, please!"

"NO!"

"Sir, please!"

Hawkeye glared at the two men, gesturing with her gaze to Edward. His face had wrinkled into a countenance akin to annoyance, and his flesh fingers had begun twitching.

The group-Roy, Al, Riza, Maes, and of course, Ed-were standing-or in Edward's position, sleeping-in the hospital parking area. They had come across a predicament that none had fathomed, what with their minds preoccupied with more urgent thoughts. Al refused to allow his brother to be taken anywhere if he couldn't accompany him. Hawkeye, in her own words, argued that she had "no yet completely satisfied her order to 'be a woman'" for Roy "needed someone to care" for him "while he cared for Edward." Hughes didn't really have a reason to still be where he was, he was just refusing to leave, at least not without snapping a photo of the Flame and Fullmetal Alchemists "snuggle-cuddling", a term that Roy instantly decided would be a felony to speak throughout his reign as Fuhrer.

And so they had come to stalemate.

"All right, Hawkeye, you drive and I'll sit in the back with Fullmetal in case he needs anything."

"What about me?"

"You, Alphonse, are welcome to ride in the front."

"But… I won't fit in the front. My breastplate's too wide."

"Okay, then, you can ride in the back of Hughes's car."

"But I want to be with my brother!"

"We're all going to the same place-"

"Please, Roy, pleeeeaaaase-"

"But what if he wakes up and I'm not there?"

"I'll tell him you're right behind us, with Hughes."

"But what if he doesn't believe you?"

"Why shouldn't he believe me?"

"Because what if he's only half-awake and isn't thinking straight?"

"That happens to everyone, Alphonse, it's no big deal-"

"But it's never happened to Brother when I'm not with him. What if he panics?"

Hawkeye took no part in the exchanges. She was too busy keeping herself from imploding with agitation. She'd been waiting in the car for half an hour for the colonel to appear with a discharged Fullmetal. Now that they were here, all she wanted to do was drive to her dorm and collect Black Hayate. Instead she was continuing to wait, while the boys argued over who sat where, who rode with whom, and whose armor could fit in what space. It wasn't until Maes asked for the twelfth time permission to use his camera that she decided her patience wasn't getting anyone anywhere,

"Roy! Let Maes take the picture!"

Mustang's head whipped around to stare at Riza in shocked horror.

"But… but Hawkeye-"

"NOW!"

Any further protest died in the colonel's throat, and he stood stock still, eyes unfocused and mouth glued shut, as Hughes, giggling like a school girl who has just realized she has an admirer, proceeded to snap as many photos as he possibly could within his precious time limit.

"Alphonse! Get in Lieutenant Hughes's car!"

The steel suit clanked away, not even bothering to voice his displeasure. He may have been invincible, but he knew that wouldn't stop Hawkeye from mangling him, and he sensed she was nearing the point of mangling.

XXX

Roy gave himself a mental note to take his coat to the cleaner's the next chance he got. The lining was saturated and the outside was beginning to dampen as well. As soon as they got back to the house, they would have to get some fluids in him. Roy estimated that such a feat would be easier said than done. He remembered Fullmetal's reluctance to drink the water Maes had given him back at headquarter, and the pained face he made as he struggled to swallow. Perhaps if he would be more willing if he was offered something more enticing than tap water. The doctor _did_ say it didn't matter what he ingested as long as he _did_ ingest it…

"Hawkeye, what sugary drinks do kids like these days?"

XXX

Something warm and slimy was being squished against his face.

"Riza, do something about your dog before he wakes up Ed! And did you _have_ to bring him with us?"

"He's only trying to help, sir. And I can't get a pet-sitter at such short notice. Black Hayate is calm and quiet; he doesn't bark at the doorbell or howl at traffic. He'll cause no trouble, I promise."

The squishy warm thing slid across Edward's mouth and he batted at it half-heartedly. His fingers brushed soft fuzz.

He was vaguely aware of being shifted on more than one occasion, but his memory was dark and nearly blank, clouded as it was by sleep.

He dreamt he was being carried Roy Mustang up a flight of stairs. Ed tried to slap him purely out of reflex-the dream was too deep to allow feeling of anger or disgust, only the dim knowledge that such an act by the colonel ought to be treated with such-and wasn't sure if he succeeded or not. His arm was heavy and his fingers were senseless and told him nothing. The limb flopped awkwardly to the side and into empty air. The feeling of gravity yanking on his bad shoulder made him moan, and arm was caught by someone else's and guided back to his body.

Nothing else he could recall was particularly significant.


	7. Chapter 7

**I don't know why, but every time I type the phrase "come on" an extra letter E appears. Dangit, spellcheck, you're supposed to help me _hide_ the fact that I'm an idiot, not accentuate it! **

**Air ventilators in the early 20th century were mechanisms designed to encompass the patient's entire body (plastic was a relatively new invention, and so intubation had yet to become a practiced procedure). For the purposes of this story, it is assomed that the air ventilator is designed similarly to the modern equipment, and is powered by electricity generated by alchemy arrays engraved upon its structure(a person may merely activate these arrays to use the machine).**

 **Whether or not this is an accurate description of this condition is for the interpreter. There is very little recorded research of this disease occuring in patients around Edward's age, as most of them occur in remote areas where little contact is available. Much of this is based on the exaggerated effects among older victims. Symptoms of tetanus vary from person to person, as it attacks the nervous system, and each person's system is unique. Age and past health issues also contribute to how the body reacts.**

 **Therefore, I apologize if there is anything anyone might find unrealistic concerning the experience of tetanus.**

* * *

"Aaaph!"

"What is it, sir?"

"He just stuck his fingers in my mouth!"

The bitter taste of iron was stinging the tip of Roy's tongue. He nearly stumbled as Edward's heavy metal arm fell away from his face and out into empty air. Fullmetal whined loudly, and Hawkeye quickly took the steel wrist and guided the stray limb back to its owner.

Reaching the top of the staircase, Roy led the way to the guest room, where Riza pulled the sheets back on the bed, and Mustang rolled Ed onto the mattress from the hammock of his arms and now thoroughly wet coat. He studied the garment, disconcerted-not by the cost to have it restored at the cleaner's, but at the fact that it had to be restored. If Edward continued to sweat like this, the kid would shrivel up like raisin by morning. Or drown in his own perspiration. Both mental images were too bizarre for words.

Riza gently pulled the blankets up to Ed's shoulders. While at the hospital, he had been stripped down to his boxers and undershirt. Little reason to redress him had been seen; at the rate that Ed was perspiring, any heavy clothing would prove uncomfortable. Riza took the opportunity to take a closer look at Ed's right shoulder. It looked normal for the most part, but if one were to inspect the line of transition from skin to steel, one would notice the edge of the port seemed trimmed with a rosy glow. Hawkeye touched the port lightly with the tips of her fingers. She expected the metal to be warm, but instinct told her that this warmth was not a healthy one. Roy waited until Riza had withdrawn her hand before speaking.

"How bad is it?"

"I can't really tell. But his shoulder's hot to the touch."

Mustang sighed in an almost resigned way.

"I'll take care of it when he wakes up. Better let him sleep for now. Let's go help Maes get the ventilator up the stairs."

XXX

"Brother… Oh, Broootheeer…"

"Nng."

"Guess what I've got, Brother."

"Go 'way."

"It's your favorite."

Something poked Edward's cheek. It felt sharp, but not pointed, and Ed growled. He hated being woken up, for any reason at all. Except for food. Food was something to be woken up for. His lips were prodded and Ed spluttered out of reflex.

"Al, what're you doin'?!"

"Giving you a present."

"S'a stupid presen', stickin' in m'mouth..."

"It's not stupid, that's where it's supposed to go."

"Wha'?"

"Open your eyes. I promise you'll like it."

Ed huffed in irritation but did as he was told.

At first the world was nothing but spilled watercolors. After a good deal of blinking, his vision finally cleared enough that he could see Al leaning over him, holding a glass. In the next moment, Edward realized three things:

First, that it must have been the straw floating in the glass his brother had been poking him with.

Secondly, the contents of the glass was sunset red.

Third, that he was lying in pool of wet linens and his own sweat.

This last revelation he found particularly unpleasant.

His immediate solution was, naturally, to sit up push the drenched sheets away from his body. As soon as he told his body to move, Edward came fully awake.

Ed's back and arm throbbed as he lifted himself to a sitting position. He tried to hide the awful pain he knew was showing in his eyes by ducking his head. He heard Alphonse shift and then felt a leather gauntlet push itself into his back beneath his shoulder blades and help him complete the motion.

"Al, I can do it on my own."

"I'm sure you can, Brother."

Ed was about to reply with a sharp _Then stop touching me!_ Then it occurred to him that if Al did so, his back muscles, which were already angered by the task of lifting him, would have to continue to work to keep him upright, and although it would take little effort, it would add up until the soreness became too much for Ed to bear, or the muscles would simply give out and he would fall onto the bed unceremoniously, and probably wouldn't be able to get up again. So he relaxed and let Alphonse support his weight, and pointedly ignoring the situation. Al, however, wasn't making that very easy.

As soon he was sure his brother was comfortable, he once again poked Edward's lips with the straw.

"Ow! Al-"

"Shut up and drink."

Hearing the word "drink" made Ed realize how incredibly thirsty he was.

He bit down on the straw without further protest. To his satisfaction, the drink was, as he'd hoped, punch, and within the next half minute the glass was half empty. It didn't once reach his mind that his brother was both holding him up _and_ holding the glass for him.

"Whoa! Brother, slow down! You could-"

Edward's epiglottis failed to lift as he paused in his swallowing to take a breath. He made a stricken, gargling sound, turning away from the glass and gulped at the air like a fish. Alphonse stiffened, wondering what he ought to do, when Ed gagged, choking on nothing as his throat convulsed savagely. And then his esophagus turned limp and he sucked in air. Al watched, frightened, as Ed panted and gasped.

"Brother… Are you okay?"

Ed's throat was still limp. It felt heavy in his neck. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"Do you… do you want to drink some more?"

He thought before he answered. He was still terribly thirsty.

"Yeah… okay…"

Good. If he could talk, he reasoned, he should be able to swallow.

"Not so fast this time, okay Brother?"

"Yeah. Sure."

Edward would drink one mouthful of punch, then take a few cautious breaths, and the repeat the process. Inevitably, the glass became empty, and Ed stared at it forlornly, wishing he could fill it back up with his eyes.

"Don't worry, Brother. We have more." Al's voice held a hint of amusement as he placed the glass on the bedside table.

The acceptance of the furniture brought Edward to properly take in his surroundings. He did not recognize them.

"Where are we?"

"At the colonel's house."

"At the… _colonel's_ house!?"

He glanced around the room in an almost horrified way, then shot his gaze downward and stared at the bed beneath him.

"I've been sleeping in… the _colonel's_ bed!?"

"And sweating in it, too."

At this Ed gave the sheets a second glance, and a slow, maniacal smile spread across his face.

"I have… I hope it stains." He pictured a frustrated colonel vainly scrubbing linens, the air stinging of bleach and turning the man's eyes red. He giggled savagely.

Alphonse wisely decided to say nothing.

XXX

"…So the colonel got you up the stairs and put you here, and you've been sleeping ever since."

Edward swallowed the last drops of his third helping of punch as he contemplated the day's events, as described by his brother. Much of the garbled collections of sensual data he remembered was beginning to make sense. Although there was one thing he had trouble understanding.

"You punched someone?"

"Yes, I did." Al's voice was heavy with shame.

"You punched someone because you thought they were hurting me?"

"Yes."

They were speaking of Alphonse's reaction upon arriving at Eastern Command. He had found his brother shouting and writhing as a stranger loomed over his right shoulder, and Al had panicked. The medic who had been trying to inspect Ed's port was now sporting a face of two colors-one of a healthy complexion, the other an ugly soup of reds, blues, and blacks. Ed found this fact quite touching.

"That's awesome, Al!"

"No, it's not! I could have really hurt them!"

"Yeah, but they would've hurt me if you hadn't."

"They didn't mean to!"

"That's beside the point."

"No, it isn't! What if-"

"Judging by all the high-pitched yelling, I'd say you're awake, Fullmetal."

The brothers had been so engrossed in their conversation that neither had noticed the colonel opening the door to the guest room. He stood in the threshold, expression calculating and unreadable, as it often was.

"Hello, Colonel Mustang. Brother and I want to thank you for letting us stay here."

"No, we don't. And I my voice is not high-pitched!"

"Brother! Be polite. If it wasn't for the colonel you'd still be in the hospital, and probably drugged stupid, too."

Edward's face drained of color and he said nothing.

"You seem to be enjoying my punch; I've seen Alphonse make more than one trip to the kitchen for refills."

"It's not _yours_ , it's _mine_. You got it for me, remember?" By the time Ed realized what he'd said, the words were already out of his mouth.

Mustang smirked. He loved it whenever someone fell for his traps.

"So you admit it! In that case, I think a 'thank you, Colonel Mustang' is in order."

"No way in hell!"

"Brother!"

"I don't owe him anything-"Edward ceased speaking abruptly and his flesh hand rose to his face, hiding it. Roy's arrogant radiance vanished and he hurried to the boy's side."

"Fullmetal? What's wrong?"

"Brother?" Al leaned closer to Ed, trying to earn a response of any kind.

"Go 'way."

"But, Brother-"

"I said, go!"

Mustang noticed that Edward's words were coming out slurred and he quickly figured why.

"His facial muscles are acting up."

"Is there any way we can make them stop?"

"You could _go away_."

"Not immediately. We could try giving him the sedatives-"

"No!"

"…Apparently, we are _not_ giving him the sedatives. The only thing we can do is wait it out."

" _You_ don't have to wait out anything." Edward's statement was acidic, especially so since it was true.

There was an awkward silence.

"Well, if you have to deal with it, I'll deal with it with you."

Roy fought the impulse to smile at Alphonse's ridiculously loyal words.

The sound of a door opening, followed by many footsteps, caught all three attentions.

"What in the-"

"Roy! We're here! And guess who's with me?!"

"Is that… Hughes?" Ed looked from Roy to Al and back again, not sure who the question should be directed at. Al was the one who answered.

"Yep. He and Mrs. Hughes brought you dinner. It was awfully nice of them, wasn't it?"

A familiar gleam sparked in Edward's eyes. He and Al realized at that moment that Ed hadn't eaten all day.

 _Uh oh_.

XXX

"Ed, my boy! You're finally awake! Last time I saw you, you and Roy were snug-"

"You brought me food?!"

Hughes was a bit taking aback by Edward's presumptuous greeting.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant." Al was trying quite hard not to laugh. Maes was standing with his hand in the air in some kind of extravagant salute. He had barged across the threshold like that, clearly with a hello-get-well-soon speech he had been working on for the past hour, and Ed's appetite had ruined it. "He hasn't really had anything to eat all day."

"Where's the food?"

Ed looked Hughes up and down, and even tried leaning to the side to check behind him. When his searches proved fruitless, he returned his eyes to Maes, countenance gloomy with betrayal.

"Al said you had food."

"It's downstairs in the kitchen." Maes lowered his hand and smiled at Edward the way one might when watching a kitten explore a new toy.

Ed immediately made to leap off the bed and make his way to the lower level. He was stopped by a giant blue arm.

"Al, what-"

"Mrs. Hughes will bring you something, Brother."

"She doesn't have to. I can walk just fine."

"She's only trying to be nice."

"I said, I'm fine-"

"Your brother's right, Ed." Edward glared at Hughes. The man wore a strange expression; scrutinizing, yet in a nervously expectant way. Ed's eyes narrowed. There was something Maes wasn't telling him.

XXX

Dinner was quite an event.

Mrs. Hughes brought Ed plate after plate of casserole. Al offered every single time she did this to cut the food for him. Every single time Al did this, Ed would snap that, no, he could cut his own food, and besides, it was a casserole, and therefore was a dish made without knives in mind. He would then hungrily began to swallow as much casserole as he possibly could per mouthful. Eventually, he would choke, and Al would panic, and Ed would be too busy trying to get his diaphragm to let go of his lungs to tell him to shut up.

"You don't have to eat all of it, Brother."

"But I _want_ to eat all of it."

He was panting for breath.

"Well, too bad."

Ed looked up tiredly as Roy and Hawkeye appeared at the threshold.

"You have to save some for us, Fullmetal."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do. I'm your superior officer, and I am ordering you to save some of that casserole for the lieutenant and me."

"I'm off duty and where have you been?"

"Entertaining the baby. Hughes and his wife have taken over for now."

"Elicia's here?" Roy sighed at the excited note in Al's voice.

"Yes, she is. Maes thought Fullmetal would be magically cured by his daughter's… babiness, but I told him she had to stay downstairs."

"Why? Afraid I'd bite her or something?"

"Brother!"

"Yes." Roy surprised both brothers with his sarcastic answer. "I told him all about your vicious fangs and your insatiable lust for the blood of children-ow!"

Hawkeye had stamped down on his toes, which were already purple from the times she had assaulted them with her heel at the hospital.

"We didn't want Elicia to tire you out."

It was the truth. Perhaps a bit watered down on severity, but the truth nonetheless.

Edward scoffed.

"Tired? I'm not tired. I've been sleeping all day!" His eyelids drooped as he spoke.

They widened soon afterward.

His stomach, roiling with the meal-meals-he'd eaten, had been contentedly performing its nature until a moment ago. It felt as if something had become jammed, some gear of his innards had broken loose and fallen into the mechanism, ceasing its progression.

"Brother? Brother, are you okay?"

"'M fine."

He then contradicted his own words as his midriff clenched so violently, he was forced to curl into himself. Roy stampeded out of the room, screaming as if he'd found a corpse buried in his closet.

"Maes! MAES, WE NEED YOU!"

Hawkeye's reaction was Mustang's antithesis.

She dived to the side of the bed and placed a firm hand on Edward's back.

"Ed? Look at me. What's wrong?"

Ed hadn't planned on saying anything. Even if he had, he wouldn't have managed. His abdominals tightened even further. Edward gritted his teeth. He could feel the miniscule rips that were forming in the muscles; each one was a small beacon of fire below his rib cage.

Footsteps scrabbled across the floor.

"How bad is it?"

"Is he breathing?"

"Roy!"

Hawkeye's gaze snapped to Mustang and bore into him with the intensity of markswoman, and Roy's heart braced itself instinctively for the bullet that would surely ruin it. His instincts were true. When the projectile arrived, it tore open scars that only he and Riza knew existed.

"Talk to him, Roy. Tell him what to do."

Hughes and Al both looked at Hawkeye in bewilderment, and then at Roy, awaiting an explanation. Roy looked at nothing. His eyes were glazed and his jaw was rigid, his face the color of bleached bone. Those who knew him referred to the countenance as the "Ishval face." Many read it as a warning, a sign that the Flame Alchemist was no longer there, and was prone to lashing out at his personal ghosts that did not burn, and charring the living that did.

Hughes saw it as a calling to his duty as Mustang's friend and as a fellow survivor of the fighting. He clamped his hand on Roy's shoulder; not tight enough to hurt, but strong enough break through whatever visions were ruling his mind. And there had been only one person throughout the sources of the visions that had ever done so.

Roy slowly turned his head and faced Maes. He did not see him at first, but after sifting through the layer of dreams, he found the contours, and focused to the best of his ability until the imagined world receded to the back the edges of his sight.

Edward moaned.

It was a short sound, quickly cut off and stifled. But Roy heard it, and he heard the pain and fear it held.

 _Talk to him, Roy._

He stepped towards the bed. Hughes's hand fell from his shoulder as he walked from underneath it.

 _Tell him what to do._

Ed was trembling with exertion he was unwillingly spending. He was trapped hunched over himself, his left arm strangling his torso and his right clutching the elbow, as if making to pull the limb away from himself, but balking out of uncertainty.

 _Focus on me, Roy._

"Focus on me, Ed."

His hand caressed the boy's arched, spiny back. He could feel the sudden twitches and jerks as the muscles tore, but if anything, the damage only made the tissue pull tighter.

"Think about breathing. Don't move anything. Just relax. Focus on me, and think about breathing."

 _Keep breathing, Roy._

"And if you can't breathe… just focus on me."

One minute passed.

Two minutes.

Three.

And for each one, he repeated the mantra, his sense of touch affixed upon the feeling of Ed's constricted lungs valiantly snatching any air that found its way down his throat.

On the death of the fourth minute, Fullmetal collapsed.

No one spoke.

No one moved.

Then Edward moaned, and Roy was lightheaded with thankfulness.


	8. Chapter 8

**WARNING! THIS IS A REALLY, REALLY LONG CHAPTER! IT'S, LIKE, 22 PAGES LONG!**

 **Also, it sucks.**

 **Also, it's 4:30 in the morning.**

 **I sleep now.**

* * *

Roy Mustang was saying good-bye.

He was saying good-bye to his eyes, which had ensnared so many women over the years with their tantalizing darkness that implanted a longing to be swallowed by it. He was saying good-bye to his nose, so perfectly straight, not too long or too short, guiding the observer from his downy brow to his mouth. Not a trace of stubble, and lips carved exquisitely into the flesh, cheeks trained expertly to pull the correct smirk at the correct time. He said good-bye to his pristine, costless reflection as the steam from the sink coated the mirror in a blurry mist, because he was sure by the end of the hour, Edward Elric would tear his face from his skull.

XXX

The Hughes family had departed the previous evening, promising to return the next with a second potluck. Ed didn't remember them leaving. Nor did he remember falling asleep, although he doubted he had. Based on what he could remember, he had lost consciousness in the colonel's bed.

He remembered pain.

He remembered terror.

He remembered Mustang.

 _Focus on me and think about breathing._

And so he had.

Through the sensation of his body pulling itself into string meat, he had turned all his attention to the feeling of Roy's hand on his back. Warm, firm, muffled by fabric… air goes in, air goes out, air goes in, air goes out, air goes out, air goes out… And then finally air went in and he heard his name. He tried to call out, to answer, but he couldn't form sentences in his brain or words in his mouth and instead he had replied with a nonverbal bray with his vocal cords.

Then nothing.

When he awoke, he found himself soaked to the soul, and Black Hayate curled into his side.

The dog slept with his chin on Edward's hip. His hand rested on Hayate's head, as if he had been scratching the dog behind the ears in his sleep. Besides him and the canine, the room was devoid of life. He wondered where Roy, Riza, and Al had hidden themselves.

He thought he smelled bacon.

XXX

"What does your brother normally eat for breakfast, Alphonse?"

"A sandwich."

Riza Hawkeye paused in her act of locating the colonel's barely handled cooking implements and blinked bemusedly at the suit of armor.

"Okay… what does he eat for lunch?" she asked, her maternal intuition jumping at the signal that there was something about the boy in the guestroom she should probably know.

"A sandwich."

"What about dinner?"

"A sandwich."

She contemplated this in silence for a moment.

"Is there anything he'll eat that _isn't_ a sandwich?"

"Brother will eat anything. I saw him eat a furry muffin he found on the ground when we were little. He was sick for days. Mom told him not to eat food off the ground anymore."

Now Hawkeye was thoroughly confused-a state of mind that often reached her when in the company of the Elric brothers.

"But… then why does-"

"Brother forgets to eat," Alphonse answered her question before she finished asking it. "He's always so busy researching ways to get our bodies back, he doesn't get up for meals. Even if I make something for him and I put it in front of him, he won't notice. So I just make him a sandwich and stick it in his hand. Then he eats and studies at the same time. Besides, Mom never let us use the stove, and I can't really smell or taste, so I have a hard time telling if I'm doing it right. But I know I can't mess up a turkey sandwich. Or at least, I don't think so…"

"I'm sure you've never done such a thing," said Riza, returning to removing a hefty frying pan from a cupboard that was reserved for the area of domestic life Roy Mustang had never properly been acquainted with. She suddenly felt almost uncouth to be noting the lack of grease coating the pan, when the boy standing two heads taller than her couldn't feel himself breathe.

She shook her head roughly. Pancakes didn't make themselves.

XXX

The sound of meat sizzling was punctuated by the distinct flopping noise of bare feet on the floor.

Roy Mustang entered his kitchen to the sight of his lieutenant frying bacon over his stove and a suit of armor cracking three of his eggs into his measuring bowl.

His first thought was wonderment at the fact that he owned a measuring bowl.

His second was that he could not smell coffee being brewed.

The third was a recollection of the events of the preceding evening.

Edward.

"How is-"

"Still sleeping, sir. Black Hayate is with him now." Riza did not look up from transferring browned strips of pork from the pan to a waiting plate on the counter.

"Did… did you sleep here last night?"

"I did, sir. If you recall, I put together a change of clothes when we stopped for Hayate the other day."

A change of clothes.

At his house.

Riza Hawkeye undressing _in his house_ -

"Stop that, Roy. It's not polite."

"Yes, ma'am." Neither of them questioned how she had known what he had been thinking.

"But _where_ in the house-"

"On your couch, sir. I hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all."

And then he realized that Hawkeye had slept on his couch.

"Wait… _NO!_ I mean _yes!_ I mean-you shouldn't have had to sleep on the couch!"

"Edward has the guestroom, sir. The couch was the only free resting place I could find."

"What are you talking about? My bed's big enough for two, you could have slept with me!"

His words made Riza stiffen.

She, like Roy, was garbed in her sleep wear, having seen no pressing reason to dress formally. However, she, unlike Roy, carried a method of defense on her person no matter the place or time. He realized this when his lieutenant produced a piston from the collar of her nightshirt.

"Or _I_ could have slept on the couch, and _you_ could have taken the bed!" Mustang's voice was an octave higher than normal.

"Why don't you go check on Edward, sir? I can't imagine him sleeping through the smell of food."

Roy was out of sight before she began her second sentence. From down the hall, the colonel heard a tinny voice speak up shyly.

"Umm, Miss Hawkeye… why did you pull a gun on Mr. Mustang?"

XXX

The door to the guestroom was melded into the threshold, but it wasn't by any means closed. Roy carefully it aside, afraid of startling the boy with a squeak from the hinge or an abrupt entrance. Edward was awake, his left hand absent-mindedly stroking Black Hayate's fur. The dog opened one eye as he sensed Mustang's presence and huffed a greeting. Fullmetal lay on his back, his eyes facing the ceiling. He gave no sign that he knew Roy was there.

"I smell food."

Roy nearly jumped, but caught himself with impressive effort of will.

"Hawkeye and your brother are making pancakes and bacon."

Ed said nothing.

"How are you feeling?"

Ed paused in his stroking of Hayate, as if considering the question, and then said tersely, "Fine."

 _He's lying._

"Are you hungry?"

Fullmetal's shoulders twitched, like he had been planning on shrugging, and then decided against it at the last moment.

"I guess I could eat."

There was an awkward silence as Roy racked his brain for something to say.

"Well… well, good. The lieutenant and Alphonse worked hard on those pancakes."

Again, Edward said nothing.

Mustang departed swiftly. There was nothing that he could think of to say that would make sense in this rather one-sided conversation, and he elected to cut the discomfort short.

XXX

"What are you doing?"

Hawkeye had cut the buttered and syrup drenched pancakes into small squares, and now she was quite literally ripping Edward's bacon to pieces. She cast Alphonse a glance of acknowledgement out of the corner of her eye.

"I'm tearing through the cooked fat in between the meat. Normally, I assume your brother would just chew the tough parts, but I don't think it would be a good idea for him to strain his jaw muscles. If it's in smaller pieces, he'll be able to swallow it without chewing."

"Oh." Al was impressed. "Wow, you're really observant, Miss Hawkeye. And that's awfully nice of you. Thank you."

A smile touched the edges of Riza's mouth.

XXX

Her prediction proved correct.

Ed greeted his brother with a smile. Al guessed the expression was prompted by the sight of breakfast rather than his presence. Black Hayate raised his head from where he had been relaxing against Ed's hip. His nose twitched, the tantalizing smell of hot meat bringing water to his mouth. Riza had trained him well, so he did not give in to the temptation to bowl into Al's breastplate and knock the plate to the floor. Instead he stood swiftly and hopped off the bed, squeezing through the small gap between door and frame that Alphonse had allowed, on his way to petition his mistress for a meal of his own.

"Hawkeye made you some food, Brother." He did not deign to mention that she had also cut it for him.

"Colonel said she was cooking. Who would've guessed the bastard has a stove?"

"Yeah. And a frying pan, too."

"Really? I bet his mom gave it to him for his birthday."

Edward accepted the plate with his right hand. Al noticed that he did so with the elbow and upper arm grounded on the bed, most likely to avoid aggravating his shoulder. He quickly forgot about this oddity as his mind became engrossed with an even stranger one. Ed placed the plate on his stomach, took the fork his brother offered him in his left hand, and began poking at the pancake squares, and doing all of this while still lying flat on his back.

"Umm… Brother…What are you doing?"

"I'm eating, Al. What does it look like I'm doing?"

Ed managed skewer three of the squares on the fork's prongs, then proceeded to bounce the utensil between his fingers. Satisfied that the food was firmly impales, he drug his arm across his chest and stuck the pancake-cloaked end of the fork into his mouth. His arm did not leave his body once throughout the exercise.

Al replied with his trademark honesty.

"I have absolutely no idea."

Ed grunted dismissively and repeated the procedure stiffly.

"Why don't you sit up, Brother?"

"Because I don't want to."

The words were shoved at him with a ferocity that Al recognized instantly. His big brother was trying to pretend that whatever reason he really wasn't in a more practical position didn't exist, and most likely because he knew Al wasn't going to like it.

It didn't take much for Alphonse to figure out what that reason was.

"You can't do it."

"Huh?" Ed paused in delivering miniature pieces of bacon to his face.

"You can't sit up. You can't even lift your arms."

Frightened concern layered Al's voice like it was a part of the ringing sound echoing from his armor.

Edward hated it.

"No, really, Al, I just don't feel like it. I can sit up if I want to. See watch-"

The breath he had been planning to use to continue speaking became lodged in his lungs as he forced his broken, ruined muscles to contract. Swollen with blood and scored with tears, the tiny fibers had been twitching and yanking throughout his sleep during the night, and the frail connections that had been valiantly holding and healing were not enough to lift Edward's weight-but Edward's weight was more than enough for them. Edward yelped as he felt those final bonds snap, and his lower back turned terribly stiff and hard.

"Brother!"

Ed didn't answer right away. He could feel a small line of white-hot pain just below the center of his back, on the right side of his spine. He could also feel the area grow hot as blood flooded to it, immediately working to close the gap in the tissue and creating the sensation of an uncomfortable knob forming beneath his skin.

"I'm all right, Al. Just a little sore." Ed silently cursed as his words came out slightly shaken. The pain wasn't the worst, and was definitely bearable, but its sudden spark into existence had caught him off guard.

"Should I get the colonel? Or the lieutenant?" Or-"

"No!" Al started at the fierceness in the syllable. Ed gave himself a moment to regain his composure and continued in a more even tone.

"You don't need to bother them, little brother. I'm just feeling kind of stiff. Okay? I'm fine, really. I promise."

 _What is happening to me?_

XXX

"He's worse."

Roy looked up from his badly needed second helping of coffee.

Al held Edward's plate, now devoid of breakfast. He clanked across the floor and gently placed it in the sink. Roy realized, with a bit of a jolt, that this meant he had dishes to wash. This had never happened to him before. He wasn't quite sure what it meant. He supposed he would eventually have to wash them… but he had never washed dishes before. Perhaps Hawkeye-

"He can't move."

Mustang forgot about dishes.

Al was still standing in front of the sink, his nonexistent gaze unfocused. Mustang recognized the stance for that of someone who wishes to be useful to a cause, but it is in a situation in which there is no sensible action that can be taken, and so saw no reason to do anything at all if nothing anyone could do would have an effect.

"He can't sit up. He ate his whole breakfast on his back. He can't even lift his arms. I think… I can tell he's hurting. He's hurting too much to move."

Mustang sighed and stared into his coffee. If only Fullmetal would take the relaxants the doctors had prescribed, he wouldn't be convulsing so violently and his body wouldn't find it so easy to pull itself apart.

And then he remembered.

"Anti-toxin."

"Huh?" Al's helmet shifted so that the visor was facing the colonel.

"Ed hasn't been given his dose of anti-toxin for the day."

Roy drained the remains of his drink and stood, making his way to his room. The paper bag with the pharmaceuticals was in the pocket of his uniform jacket. Retrieving it, he ripped the stapled mouth apart and unceremoniously dumped the contents on the bed.

"Okay, diazepam… that's the relaxants… anti-arrhythmic… I should probably give that to him to… tranquilizers… just in case… ah! Anti-toxin!"

He quickly read the labels for each, noticed that the dosages were based on body weight, realized he didn't know Fullmetal's. He caught himself before he shouted across the house to Alphonse for this information, remembering the ban on loud or sudden noises, and instead returned to the kitchen with the medicines in his hands.

"How much does your brother weigh, Alphonse? Without the automail."

The suit of armor made a puzzled sound, then turned away from the dishes he had been washing-Roy would have to remember to thank him later-then saw the bottles the colonel was holding.

"Just under a hundred pounds. Should I get a glass of water for Brother to swallow the pills with?"

"Yes, please, if you would."

He abruptly noticed that he hadn't seen the lieutenant since breakfast.

"Do you by chance know where Riza's gone?"

"She's actually with Ed right now. She wanted to get a closer look at his shoulder."

XXX

Riza had entered the guestroom with a glass of punch and a bowl of dog food. Black Hayate eagerly began gobbling the kibble as soon as his mistress placed the container on the floor. She set the glass on the bedside table. Edward seemed to be dozing; his breathing was even, though his skin shone with sweat. Hawkeye noted with disgust that the sheets were still wet. Perhaps she ought to treat Ed to a warm bath while she changed the linens.

She sat herself in the chair Alphonse had been occupying when keeping an eye on his brother and leaned close to him, her attention focused on his furious-looking right shoulder. It was red and hot, and the metal cap was pressing into the tight skin. It looked as if it might pop off at the rate that Ed's shoulder was swelling, it was already noticeably bigger, if only slightly, than his left, and the skin around the metal was white. Riza wondered if there was any way that she might be able to lift the cap just enough to peer beneath it without waking Ed. She almost immediately decided that there was none.

For a while, she simply sat there, debating whether she ought to wait until Edward woke to inspect his shoulder or do something productive and come back later. Eventually, Black Hayate, finished with his meal, hopped onto the bed and saw his mistress studying a specific part of the Ed's body. Curious, he stepped over the lumps under the thin, wet blanket that were Ed's legs and made his way to her. Upon reaching his mistress, his nose caught the scent of infection. He glanced at the boy's shoulder sniffed it experimentally, and, out of instinct, began to lick it.

Ed moaned and twitched in several places. His eyes opened the smallest bit and he saw a furry, black and white body next to his face.

"Hayate, no."

Riza gently shooed the dog away. Hayate obeyed without question, though he cast her a confused expression while he did so.

"'S okay," Edward mumbled, surprising Hawkeye. "Feels better that way."

For a moment, she considered letting her dog continue his ministrations. Unfortunately, Hayate's tongue would probably impede a proper examination.

"I brought you some punch," she said, retrieving the glass from the table.

Ed opened his eyes a small fraction more and stared at the glass.

"Would you like some?"

Edward licked his lips thirstily and Riza took it as an affirmative before the boy lied that he wasn't. She placed the glass on the table once more and slipped her hands underneath him, one under his back and one behind his neck.

"I can do it," he protested pathetically.

"No, you can't. Alphonse told me."

Ed's eyes flashed with annoyance, but he said nothing more as the lieutenant slowly, carefully guided his body into a sitting position. Her hands were abnormally strong for a female, and yet contrastingly soft as they supported the weight of his immobile body. She adjusted the pillows behind his head to insure his comfort, then took the glass from the table and brought it to his lips.

Riza didn't comment on the way Edward would drink, stop and take a few breaths, and then drink again.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him between swallows. She saw his mouth pull into a forced smirk and knew he was about to say that he was fine. Riza set her own face in a glare that she plagued upon the colonel whenever he came into the office ill insisting he was healthy. The smirk vanished at once and the alchemist lowered his gaze in resignation.

"My head hurts. And my back hurts. And my arm hurts."

"How does your shoulder feel?"

Ed didn't answer right away.

"It's all tingly and hot and it burns. It… it hurts really badly if I move my automail at all."

Riza nodded understandingly and waited until Edward had finished the glass to inspect his shoulder.

She brushed her fingers over the skin and Ed hissed.

"What are you doing?"

He was trying to cover his nervousness with false indignation. Hawkeye did not respond to the latter.

"I'm just taking a closer look."

She did not like the way she could feel the blood pulsing through his flesh. The vibrations and heat intensified as she brought her fingers closer to his port. Riza knew Ed would be inclined to flinch as soon as he realized what exactly she was trying to do.

"Easy, Edward. I promise not to hurt you, okay. If you feel like I'm causing you pain, just tell me, and I'll stop. Just hold still for a minute."

She was impressively shocked that her strategy worked. Edward did not move away from her, though she could still sense nervousness radiating off him. Black Hayate could as well, he settled himself in Ed's lap and brushed his nose over the boy's stomach reassuringly.

Cautiously, lightly, and very slowly, Hawkeye slipped the tips of the finger of one hand below the lip of metal, while the fingers of her other hand were placed on the corner of his jaw. The hand touching his jaw encouraged him to lean his head to the left, so that it was resting on his opposite shoulder, while the hand touching his port began to tenderly pull the metal away from his skin.

XXX

This is what Roy Mustang found when he entered the guestroom.

He stared at the scene before him, not quite sure what to make of it. Edward's sideways eyes met his and Fullmetal's face twisted into a threatening scowl. Roy took the warning to heart and said nothing.

"Roy, could you get me a tissue, or something like that?" Hawkeye said, her voice muffled by calculation.

Mustang moved to comply, then realized Riza hadn't looked up to see who had crossed the threshold.

"Wait, how did-"

"The only other person in this house is Alphonse, and, if you'll excuse me, Edward, he has a very distinctive gait."

Ed didn't react beyond a quiet sigh.

Accepting her answer, Mustang swiftly made his way down the hall to the bathroom and retrieved a spare roll of toilet paper. Riza didn't seem to care that he'd returned with the whole roll rather than a few pieces, or if she did, she showed no sign of it. She tried unsuccessfully to tear a portion of the paper from the coil with one hand, as she needed the other to keep Ed's automail from touching his shoulder. Feeling the sight of his lieutenant struggle with anything so menial was more than he could bear, Roy took the roll from her and removed a decent amount. Hawkeye accepted the paper with a nod of thanks and proceeded to scrub the underside of the metal cap.

Edward winced, remembered the colonel was watching, and quickly tried to wipe his face of expression. Unfortunately, his facial muscles refused to obey and remained scrunched. Ed quickly turned his attention to the wet bedsheets. He did not see Roy's eyebrows pinch together in sympathy.

"Oh my God."

Mustang felt his breakfast turn to stone in his stomach.

Ed forgot about the spasms in his face.

"What? What is it?" The fear was unhidden in Edward's voice.

Roy stepped to Riza's side. Hawkeye turned and gave him a look he read clearly as, "Don't say anything." She discreetly handed him the bunched wad of toilet paper. Ed's gaze followed him anxiously, but Roy did not meet it. Mustang carefully unraveled the ball, taking care to keep the contents out of Ed's vision.

His face paled.

He raised his eyes to Hawkeye's. She waited patiently, and yet expectedly, and Mustang found the combination strangely calming.

In the silence, Hayate whined. The dog's nostrils flared and he licked lips nervously. Black Hayate smelled sickness. He growled low in his throat and shifted his paws uneasily.

"Colonel? I've got the water and the medicine."

Alphonse paused in the threshold, studying the eyes and faces that were now all focused on him.

"Is everything all right?"

Roy sighed and shook his head slightly, to Al it looked like he might be mentally chastising himself.

"Yes, Alphonse. Everything's just fine. Riza," he turned to his lieutenant, "could you possibly coax Edward into taking his pills? If you would, I'll go… prepare the less conventional prescriptions."

He slipped passed Al and into the hallway quickly, eager to avoid the impending shouting that would be Fullmetal protesting Hawkeye's encouraging words to take the pills.

XXX

And so there he was, bidding farewell to his life and body as he filled a soup bowl he had found in the kitchen with the hottest water the tap could provide.

He sighed mournfully. He had delayed a reasonable amount of time, anymore and it would, naturally, become unreasonable, and then Hawkeye might accuse him of abandonment-or Edward might rile himself into another seizing fit. It was the latter that gave him the drive to shut off the faucet. He hauled the bowl clumsily out of the sink-he had made sure to only fill it half full, he doubted sloshing water on the floor would really harm anything, but even so-and, rather ungracefully, carried it from the bathroom to the guestroom. The underside of the container stung his fingers, but the sensation was nothing compared to searing bit of snapping fire into life. He had managed to find a couple of bath towels hiding in the cupboard below the sink. This was impressive because he rarely used the upstairs bathroom, as he tended to use the one on the main floor due to its proximity to his bedroom. There wasn't even soap at the upstairs sink, he had had to fetch a bar from the one downstairs.

Within the towels, which he carried beneath his arm, were hidden the syringes. One held the recommended dose of anti-toxin, the other was a spare. He couldn't imagine under what circumstance a spare syringe would be needed, but he knew he would have regretted it when that circumstance appeared and he hadn't anticipated it.

The guestroom was silent.

Nearly all of the time it was soundless, so it took several moments for Roy to remember that it should not be. The essential arguing and impossible threats were absent, and Mustang immediately assumed the worst. He reached the guestroom, braced for the sight of a bloody Riza Hawkeye and an asphyxiated Edward Elric.

He found the opposite.

"Oh, there you are, sir. I was about to send Alphonse to make sure you hadn't climbed out a window and deserted us."

Her tone was unsettlingly pleased and her face was dusted with traces of triumph. Roy looked at Edward. Fullmetal's eyes were round and unfocused. His gaze met the colonel's, and as it did, it filled with a mosaic of emotions that Mustang had never imagined Ed would associate with his superior. To state it roughly, the unspoken message was a collaboration of _You have to deal with this regularly?!_ and _How could you leave to face this alone?!_

"Riza," Roy began carefully, wary of that smile and glint in her eyes, "what exactly did you do?"

"I encouraged him to take his medicine, sir, as you asked of me."

"She pulled a gun on him," Al elaborated. His voice sounded uncertain, as if he wasn't sure if he ought to feel outraged or complacent about the lieutenant's behavior.

Mustang was surprised to realize that he wasn't surprised. In fact, he felt quite reassured. Of course Riza would pull a gun on Edward to convince him to do as she said. What else would she have done?

"Oh. All right, then."

Riza's smile widened the tiniest amount.

Fullmetal's countenance was stamped with hurt and betrayal.

XXX

At first, Edward was too upset over the colonel's permission for Hawkeye to corporally harass him to properly appreciate the bowl in the man's hands. When he did, his first fleeting, wishful thought had been that Mustang had brought him stew. Then reason caught up with him, and he noticed the lack of utensils, as well as the towels, and soap.

 _Are they going to give me a sponge bath while I'm still in bed? No way in hell am I going to let them do that!_

Riza removed the empty glass from the bedside table so that Roy could set the bowl down and take the towels and soap out from under his arm. Ed took a breath to challenge Mustang's motives. The sentence forming in his brain vanished as, to his bewilderment, Roy dropped the bar of soap into the bowl. The colonel set the towels, neatly folded, on the edge of the bed and glanced furtively at his lieutenant.

Suspicion began to gnaw at the back of Ed's mind. They were planning something; something they didn't want him to know about.

He thought back to five minutes previous, when Riza had brushed the underside of his automail with the wad of paper and then handed it to Roy.

And he realized what the something was.

"No."

Three pairs of eyes focused on him bemusedly.

"What did you say, Brother?"

" _No."_

Ed shot his brother a glare that set his face twitching violently, then turned the scowl on Roy.

"No, no, _no_."

Mustang's eyebrow went up in response.

"No what, Fullmetal?"

Edward growled furiously, the bastard knew perfectly well what he was talking about.

"No tax increases?" Roy's mouth quirked into a smirk, his character smugness appearing in his eyes. "No morning meetings? No mortgage rates?"

"Colonel, please."

Mustang cast Hawkeye an irritated pout. It was countered by a stolid glare, and Roy quickly did as he was told and wiped the amusement from his face.

Any grievance he had for Riza was swallowed by gratitude when he say Edward's expression. The boy's eyes were glowing with murder.

"Brother, we don't know what you're talking about. Remember what Mom said about speaking clearly."

Fullmetal's attention switched to his little brother, and Mustang took the opportunity to slip the readied syringe from its cloth cocoon.

"I don't need to tell him what I'm talking about, I know he knows, and he knows that, so he's just being an asshole!"

"Ed, that's not very nice! Tell the colonel you're sorry!"

"No way! Why should I apologize for stating the truth?"

Riza snatched the injector out of Roy's hands. Before he could express his consternation, she dipped the needle in the bowl of steaming water, which was now chalky with melted soap, and stirred as if the instrument was a teaspoon. She then thrust the syringe back into Roy's hand with an admonishing furrowed brow.

Oh. Sterilization. Yes.

Roy felt like an idiot.

"Because he's been taking care of you, and he's the only reason you're not still in the hospital! He's only trying to help you get better, and all you do is make it harder for him, and worse for you! If you knew how sick you are…" Hawkeye and Mustang both tensed. Alphonse must have noticed their silent messages, because he didn't finish his sentence and let the topic die away.

For a good minute, the room was silent.

Riza nudged her colonel, and he saw what his only chance was quite possibly.

The closest exposed flesh was the red swell that was his shoulder, and Roy put his faith in the inflammation to mask the sting of the needle.

Fullmetal and Flame moved in the same instant.

"All right, Al, you win. Colonel, I'm sorry for calling you-"

Ed's heart stopped.

XXX

Riza reacted first.

"Edward." Her voice was terribly soft and slow. "Edward, it's okay. It's a medicine to make you feel better."

Roy had had the sense to go completely still.

If he had moved, Edward would have surely dissolved into a state of incoherent panic. As it was, the boy's initial response had been nonexistent. He was numb with shock. Mustang watched, sickened, as Fullmetal returned to some primal level of awareness, and his blank stare became poisoned by haunted terror.

Instinct awoke in the midst of fear, summoned by an ancient, simple nature that all creatures, no matter how sophisticated, are founded with. His eyes darted in all directions, like a rabbit searching for its burrow. They stilled to his left, to his brother, and away from the lieutenant and the colonel and that awful, _execrable_ _ **thing**_ …

"Al, catch him!"

Roy needn't have spoken.

Faster than Mustang's senses could register, Edward launched himself towards his brother.

Years ago, Roy had gone on a hunting excursion with Maes. Hughes had managed to shoot a lean, strong-looking doe in the center of her chest, as the beast had lifted her head to explore the woods for the source of the rustling that had been Mustang shifting his cold limbs. The doe had sprung the heartbeat Maes had pulled the trigger of his rifle, and bounded away into the undergrowth. He remembered his friend's swearing, thinking he had missed, when the animal seemed to convulse in midair and landed on her side with a disturbing thud, her legs buckled beneath her.

And so when Fullmetal suddenly stiffened and fell, crashing into his brother's armor in midflight, he had been sure Edward's heart had burst.

XXX

"BROTHER! Oh my God! Brother! ED, NO!"

Edward lay limply in his brother's arms, his eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling and his limbs rigid and motionless.

Roy didn't know he was scrambling across the bed until he found himself wrestling with a sweaty sheet that had become tangled around his hands.

He yanked his limbs free and steadied himself on Alphonse's arm, his other hand aimed for Fullmetal's neck, praying for a pulse. Before he could even lay his fingers against the boy's throat, a crushing metal grip snapped around his wrist, squeezing so fiercely Roy could feel his radius and ulna grating against each other.

A bizarre whooping howl screeched from the armor as Al realized his big brother was still alive. The colonel stared, dumb with relief. He was shaken back to reality by Riza slamming a plastic mask over Ed's face.

"I can't activate it, sir! You have to!"

"I'll do it!"

Alphonse literally threw his brother at Roy. Any song of alchemy was killed by the ear-breaking rattling of steel. Edward gargled as his chest was forced to inflate against the pressure of his ribs. The power smashing Mustang's wrist lessened, but the colonel barely noticed the pain of blood rushing into his hand.

XXX

Edward was placed on his back on the bed.

Roy stood on his knees, his balance precarious under the squishy mattress. Most of his weight was supported by his hands. One on the boy's chest, the other on his legs, Mustang held Fullmetal down with his body. The colonel swayed and bounced, nearly toppling as his unstable position of spread limbs was rocked relentlessly by Fullmetal's seizing. Alphonse had planted himself at his self-appointed station by the ventilator. His leather fingers were interwoven and his palms pressed together, as if he was in prayer. And perhaps he was, deep within his consciousness, praying to whatever or whoever had the power that his brother would be all right.

Riza had undone Edward's messy, unattended braid and was brushing the knots out with her fingers; Roy wasn't sure if she did this to distract herself or to comfort Ed.

He remembered her hands running through his dirty, war-stained coiffure.

It was for comfort.

Although he wouldn't have blamed her if it was a selfish endeavor.

Edward was screaming.

Neither Al nor Riza could hear him, but Roy knew the straining, wheezing whistles that slipped between the boy's gritted teeth. Ed was screaming in pain, but he had no air in his lungs to give them voice.

"It's okay, Ed. You're doing well, just one minute."

 _Just one more minute._

He remembered Maes shouting over his moaning.

"One more minute, Ed. You can do it."

Each minute was a goal. A false one, but a goal nonetheless. Roy remembered clinging to each of them, and sixty seconds passed, as each checkpoint reached, he would focus on the next one as if it was entirely different than the previous. A new minute, a new goal, until it was over, and Roy remembered no more.

"You're almost there. One more minute, I promise."

Ed's eyes were open, but he could not see.

His body was tinder, and it was on fire, and he could feel the tiny pockets inside of him popping from the heat and letting the agony pour through.

They were hurting him again.

He had been torn apart on the basement floor of his father's house, and just as the holes had begun to patch themselves closed, they had torn him open all over again, stuffing him with stone and wires to replace the parts that had been stolen.

His bones had been filed, his muscles had been shorn, his very sense of feeling was peeled into separate threads and forced to be merged with lifeless cylinders of steel, parasitic rock that turned itself to flesh by leeching off his strength and will.

And it was going to happen all over again.

And he couldn't even scream.

"Just one more minute, Ed."

 _Just one more…_

XXX

"There. It's over now. It's okay. Deep breaths."

"Brother? Are you awake?"

"Hush, Alphonse. If he's asleep, we should let him rest."

Silence.

Edward was cold and wet. He was pressed against a soft, warm support. His heartbeat roared behind his ears and his head felt too small for his skull. He tried to swallow, failed, realized his chin was covered in his own spit, tried again, and succeeded, with difficulty. Ed cringed at the effort such an instinctual act required and he heard his brother's armor ring with a gasp of hope.

"Brother?"

"Waar…" Ed's jaws felt floppy and his tongue flapped uselessly in his mouth.

Despite this, Al understood him perfectly.

Al clanked as fast as he could to the kitchen, making Ed wince from the echoes they left in his head, and returned with a glass filled with water.

Roy Mustang was running out of clean drinking cups.

Riza accepted the glass and Roy adjusted Edward in his arms, so that he was more leaning rather than laying. Hawkeye placed her free hand on the back of the boy's head and held the cup to his lips while he drank. A good third of the contents was spat onto Mustang's shirt and Ed's lap. After recovering from his third choking fit, Ed turned his head away from the glass, and it was obediently taken away.

There was silence again, save for Edward's hollow breathing.

Finally the colonel spoke.

"What happened to the-"

"I caught it, sir. It's by the bowl."

"And what about the-"

"Still warm enough, though you could heat it a bit if you think you need to."

Roy shifted slightly.

"I think it's safe now, lieutenant."

The mattress creaked as Hawkeye settled herself on it. Ed felt her gently touch his flesh arm-his right was nestled in the colonel's hold-and Edward tried to flinch away. He managed a violent shiver. Riza balked, but did not take her hand from his arm.

"No."

"Ed, this medicine will make you better. It is very, very important that you get it."

Roy's voice was quiet and yet rumbled deep in his chest.

"Don't need it. Get bett' on m'own."

Mustang sighed, which surprised Edward.

The colonel sighed all the time. He sighed when he was tired. He sighed when he was frustrated or exasperated or annoyed. This sigh was none of those.

Ed was surprised because this sigh was one of sadness.

"No, Edward. You won't get better without this medicine. You can't."

Fullmetal's pale face turned white as snow.

"Yes, I can. I'm Fullme'al Alch'mist. Do anythin'."

Ed's eyes were closed. He did not see Hawkeye's gaze cloud with grief.

"No, Ed. It's not… it doesn't… you…"

"Oh, for God's sakes, _what?_ "

The impatience in the boy's sloppy words snapped Roy out of his placating, almost paternal mindset. Without it, he was Colonel Mustang, Flame Alchemist, and the child he was cradling was the Fullmetal Alchemist, his bratty subordinate, and the colonel held no qualms when he told his sweaty major the raw, viperous truth.


	9. Chapter 9

**Can you guys believe the last time I updated this story, David Bowie was still alive?**

 **Well, to make it up to guys, this chapter is a whopping _33 PAGES LONG!_ It's also disgusting! So, you may not want to read this while eating... or after eating... or ever it all... **

* * *

There were times when Roy wished he could go back in time and kill his younger self.

Snap his neck before he could burn all those innocent villagers to ashes.

Incinerate himself and the rest of the regiment before that massacre the state had recorded as a "raid" could be launched.

Shoot a hole through that empty skull of his before he could send Fullmetal on that idiotic, imbecilic, _cretinous_ assignment.

" _Oh, come on, Fullmetal. It won't take long. Only a week at most. And I'll give you three to finish it."_

 _Why was I so insistent?_

" _You grew up a country bumpkin, didn't you? You'll know how these guys think. Especially since there's practically no difference between the two of you."_

 _What was I thinking?_

" _I don't care if it's fair or not, it's an order from me, and it_ will _be followed."_

 _I should have known better. I_ do _know better._

 _I should have paid more attention._

 _I should have listened when he said it wasn't worth his time._

 _I should have been looking after him._

 _And now I've killed him_ _._

XXX

" _The infection in your shoulder is spreading to the rest of your body-we don't know how much of your muscle mass has been effected, but we do know that, at some point, the infection will reach your heart. It probably already has."_

Edward was no stranger to illness.

He remembered, albeit vaguely, nestling upon his mother's lap, curling into her arms, shivering, every joint sore and his sinuses aching. His mother would sing those common folk songs everyone knew, and stroke his soft, youth-fresh hair, until he fell asleep, and when he awoke, perhaps not shivering quite so viciously, perhaps not quite so sore, she would still be, cradling him, and maybe coax him into eating some stew she had kept warm on the stove for him.

" _The toxin keeps your muscles from relaxing whenever you move. That's why you're sore and keep seizing like you just were. The medicine we were trying to give you is the only thing that stops the toxin. You'll still have to take the sedatives; the anti-toxin keeps the part of you the toxin hasn't reached yet from being damaged. The part that's infected needs time to heal."_

The drugs they had given him had been strong.

But not nearly strong enough.

He remembered only dimly, the way one remembers a particularly impacting moment of a dream of which the rest cannot be recalled, so that what is recalled is flashing colors and intoxicated feelings of the primal nature.

He could remember the mind-melting scalding as the bases for the ports were welded to the remains of his bones.

He could remember the prickling of gloved fingers brushing over the exposed meat, pinpointing the locations of the greatest concentrations of nerves and outlining the positions for the connectors in the automail.

He could remember Winry, his head on her lap, her hands rubbing circles over his stomach, the only part of him that wasn't begging for death, even as he convulsed and vomited whatever bland crackers she had convinced him to swallow a mere five minutes earlier.

" _We're going to have to drain what we can of the infection out of your shoulder. The anti-toxins won't amount to much if the toxin itself keeps being produced. I… I know you don't like people touching your automail, but… it isn't really something that can be avoided."_

Edward wished Winry was here.

XXX

"Should we call a doctor?"

"I don't know. I… I don't want him panicking. Again. And I don't want to lose what little trust he still has for us."

"What about Hughes? I'm sure he'd be willing to help."

Roy pulled an expression of doubt.

"I don't think this is what he meant. Besides, I don't think he has the stomach for it."

"He changes his daughter's diapers on a regular basis."

"Yeah, well, that's one thing, and this… this is something different."

Riza couldn't argue with that.

"I suppose you wouldn't stand to ask Gracia, then?"

"Who was it?"

The arbitrary question took Hawkeye by surprise.

"Who was what, sir?"

"When it was me. Who was it who… you know."

Mustang's mouth was hidden behind his interlocked fingers. His chin rested on his joined hands, his elbows on the table. He and Riza had taken the conversation to the kitchen, leaving Alphonse with Fullmetal. The wad of paper that had been used to swab the underside of Ed's automail had been disposed of in the compost jar. Roy had been hard pressed to simply throw it away like any other piece of garbage. Somehow, the idea felt like dropping a corpse in a landfill. And he'd done that more times than he cared to count.

Riza hesitated, opening her mouth as if to answer and then closing it without saying a word, then staring at her surroundings, perhaps searching for some distraction from the suddenly uncomfortable feeling of the room.

"It… it was me... sir."

Raising his eyebrows was the only physical sign of surprise Roy gave.

"You?"

"Yes, sir."

For a moment, Hawkeye thought her colonel was going to make a second comment. Instead, his brow lowered back towards his face, if only a fraction.

"Oh."

A pregnant pause.

"Could you… maybe… do it again? Not for me, but for Ed this time?"

"I suppose so. Although, I'll probably need you to-"

The discussion was interrupted by clanking footsteps.

Alphonse stooped through the doorway into the kitchen. Riza noticed the cautious, almost nervous way his armor moved as he shifted into the room before she noticed the way he was holding his left gauntlet-palm up and open, as if he was holding something small, but not something he was afraid of dropping.

"Alphonse. Is there something wrong?"

The boy didn't answer right away. Then, slowly, he extended his leather hand towards them so that they could see what lay in it.

Hawkeye's hand went straight to her mouth. Mustang raised his head.

"Colonel… Miss Hawkeye… um… what… what _is_ this?" Al's voice shook, and not from the echoes of his hollow body.

XXX

The brothers had sat-or in Edward's case, lay- in silence. Alphonse felt horribly counterproductive, simply watching his big brother breathe, studying the bruise forming on his left arm, wanting to offer words or actions of comfort and knowing that he should. But Al couldn't think of anything comforting. All he could think of was how badly he wished he could switch placed with his brother. Not for the sake of living within a feeling body, but to save Ed from a body that felt itself falling apart from the inside.

Edward couldn't think at all. His mind had become numb to all things, even the torn muscle in his back that had swollen to the point of forming a tangible lump under his tank top. His mouth, not his brain, decided that there was something he needed his brother to tell him.

"Al?"

"Yeah, brother?"

"When… when we were at the… you know… and you said that the doctors were being really nice… they weren't actually being nice, were they?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well… they weren't being nice to make me feel better… they were… they didn't want me to spook and… and die on them…"

Alphonse's armor creaked as his shoulders slumped. It seemed he had lost all will to hold himself upright, any strength he had had left had been drained by the nature of Ed's inquiry.

"Yes… that's right."

Silence again.

"Brother… I'm sorry. This is my fault. I just… I didn't even think you could get hurt under your automail. If I wasn't such an idiot-"

"It's not your fault, Al." Edward's eyes slid closed as he spoke, exhaustion lacing his voice. "Nothing's ever your fault."

"Why?" Al couldn't keep frustration from sweeping over him. Edward was always patronizing him, always defending him, always taking care of Al's problems before Al even knew they existed. Common sense knew Ed only did such things out of love for his sibling, but Alphonse couldn't help feeling somewhat overly-dependent on his brother at times. "Is it because I'm the _baby_? Am I too _innocent_ to ever have any blame for _anything_?"

The lapse of time between the query and its answer was so large that, at first, Al though Ed had fallen asleep in the middle of the conversation.

"No." When it did come, Ed's reply was mumbled, for he was on the verge of dozing, despite the whirling in his head. ""Cause you're too good for that."

Al just sighed resignedly.

XXX

Poor Black Hayate was not having the best of days.

After keeping watch over his mistress and the little human that smelled of iron and fever, whom she loved, he had been thrown from his post by the alpha human that smelled constantly of the mating season, whom his mistress loved. While most dogs might have barked or growled in protest, he made no sound. He saw little point in doing so; clearly the humans were already aware of the situation if the room stank so strongly of fear scent. He did not leave his place on the floor, though he could not see what was happening from above the bed or understand anything from the shrieking primate voices besides distress. He stood guard, refusing to leave his mistress's side unless permitted, until the fear smell had nearly faded. What fresh scent Hayate could detect was laced with bitter steal and sickness.

His mistress said his name and he looked up at her expectantly.

"I'm going to let Hayate outside."

It was an excuse to leave the room as much as it was genuine.

He followed her down the hall and through the kitchen to the front door, which she opened and gestured towards the gap in the house she had created. Hayate had learned some time ago that the movement represented her allowance for him to go out in the yard, but he hesitated, studying Riza. She looked sad. Terribly, terribly sad. Hayate hated that she was sad. He wagged his tail and made a _wuff-_ like sound, reminding her that she needn't worry, because Black Hayate would always keep her safe, because he loved her.

XXX

Upon re-entering, Hayate found two bowls, each respectively filled with fresh food and water, in the kitchen by the table. He nibbled at the kibble and drank about half of the water, before returning to his station. Because he loved Riza, he was sworn to keep her safe and happy, and keep trespassers from defiling the military apartment that was their territory. And part of making sure she was happy was protecting who and what Riza loved, and Riza loved the little human that smelled of stone and, judging by his scent, was aspiring to be an alpha of significant disposition. And so he returned to the guestroom and leapt once more onto the bed where Edward lay, sending Hayate's nose twitching with the cloud of fear scent that surrounded him.

XXX

The sheets crunched as Hayate jumped onto the foot of the bed and trotted his way to where Edward could see him and Alphonse could scratch him behind the ears.

"Hey, boy. Are you looking for Miss Hawkeye?"

Hayate sniffed Al's fingers. They smelled of old, dead, cowhide. The dog wrinkled his nose and sneezed.

"I thought you like cats, Al."

"I do. That doesn't mean I can't like dogs, too."

Hayate's ears perked at the sound of Ed's voice and the dog turned his round eyes on the boy. Hayate sniffed him, and continued sniffing him, along his side and past his metal arm, to the infected shoulder he had not yet finished washing, and promptly stuck his head into the crook of Ed's neck.

Ed sighed heavily and closed his eyes. Al tried to shoo the dog away.

"Hayate, leave him-"

"Shut up, Al."

The armored shoulders jerked in incredulity.

"But… But Brother-"

"It feels nice."

"But it can't be sanitary-"

"But it _feels nice_." It was the tone of the words rather than the words themselves that stilled Alphonse; it was almost a whine, and Al realized his brother was actually afraid that Hayate would stop licking if Al didn't stop protesting.

For a while the only sound was of Hayate's tongue lapping and Ed's allayed breathing. Sometimes Hayate would go as far as to gnaw on the lip of the cap to the port, and though the scraping noise was less than appealing to Al, it didn't seem to irk his brother, and so he said nothing.

He let Hayate lap and gnaw, gnaw and lap, lap, lap, gnaw, lap, lap, gnaw, lap, gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, lap, gnaw-

"Mmh."

Al started when he heard Ed grunt, but his brother dismissed it.

"S'nothing, Al. S'fine."

Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, lap, gnaw, chew, chew, gnaw, chew, lap, chew, chew-

"Ow!"

Hayate staggered backwards, his paws clumsy on the mattress, his snout in the air and his teeth bared. He was, in the curious manner that all dogs are wont for when they have some sticky treat or bit of jerky stuck to their mouth or between their teeth, swiping and lolling his tongue and grinding his jaws with his mouth wide open.

Ed's left hand was scrabbling against his metal elbow; he had, by reflex, tried to grasp his shoulder, but as his left arm was out of commission, he only succeeded in flopping his wrist over his adjacent joint.

"Brother, what happened?"

"Nothing, Al, just a sore spot-uuh, what is he doing?"

Hayate looked from Ed to Al imploringly, still smacking his mouth.

"It looks like something's caught in his-oh, no! What if he's swallowed a screw?!"

Al wasted no more time. He wrapped one leather hand around the dog's scruff, pulling him closer, and shoved his other hand into the dog's flapping mouth. The following procedure was significantly difficult, as the hollow fingers would flatten and fold against Hayate's jaws and were devoid of any sense. It was a slobbery, frustrated six minutes before Hayate's probing tongue and Al's searching fingers managed to remove the foreign object from the back of the dog's throat. Hayate snapped his muzzle and snuffed noisily, then began wagging his tail happily in gratitude.

"Hmm. Well, he seems okay," said Edward, finding some sort of innocent amusement in the glowing blitheness of the dog's large, black eyes.

Alphonse made a sound of assent, and then remembered, out of knowledge of instinctive action rather than instigated instinct, for the instigation of this instinct was touch, which he did not have, to study the cause of Hayate's brief conundrum.

And in doing so, realized a conundrum for himself.

It looked like a strip of a banana peel.

But it was too thin and far too pale to be of a banana.

A peach perhaps?

No, too pale for even that.

The sliver appeared to be quite wet, as it stuck to his fingers readily-though that could have been a result of being doused in dog spit rather than an identifying characteristic. It was clearly a piece of something; though the break was smooth, the very fact that it was a mere slip, which by itself was of very little purpose, was indication of its misplacement from its whole.

"What the heck, Brother? What do you keep under there?"

"Under where? Ha! I said underwear…"

Alphonse had a lifetime's worth of practice keeping his annoyance hidden from his brother. After all, that was probably Ed's goal in the first place.

"Under your automail? You're not hiding food in the cracks, are you?"

Edward stopped snickering and stared at Al like the colonel's head had suddenly popped out from underneath his helmet.

"What… what kind of a question is that?! That's ridiculous!"

Proclaiming something to be grody was Ed's trademark method for dissuading his authorities that he had not done whatever he had been accused of doing-which almost always meant he had done it.

"You don't have to hide from me. If you want to carry around snacks, you can always put them in my foot or something-"

"Not that kind of 'ridiculous'! 'Ridiculous' as in there's no possible way! How would I fit _anything_ under my ports? There's barely enough room for me to get my fingers under there."

Alphonse glanced at the strip in his palm and back to his brother. He certainly sounded like he was telling the truth…

"Not even taffy? I mean, if you really squished it-"

"No! The only things under my automail are metal and skin. What the hell would make you even think that I would ever stuff things under my ports? Taffy, of all things…"

Al couldn't keep himself from feeling a bit insulted by the almost condescending attitude with which his brother was facing his inquiry. Out of habit, he made to counter Edward's argument.

"Well, then, if the only things under your automail are metal and skin, what do you call-"

Alphonse did not finish his sentence. He didn't need to. He had already answered his own question.

 _Only metal and skin…_

 _Certainly not metal…_

 _Oh, God, no…_

"What do I call what, Al? Hey, Al? Al? Wait, where are you going? Come back!"

 _Brother can't see this…_

 _What do I do?_

Without warning or any given reason, Al stood, turned away from Ed and his increasingly-annoyed protests, and walked out of the room.

He walked down the hall…

Down the stairs…

Taking _it_ far, far away from his brother…

"Alphonse. Is there something wrong?"

The kitchen…

Hawkeye's voice, Roy turning to look at him, with eyes that seemed, whatever for Al hadn't a clue, so very _sad_. Somewhere, in the back of Alphonse's reluct, horrified mind that had been stricken numb by its own calculations, he recognized them. They were grown-ups. Grown-ups always knew what to do. It was their job.

"Colonel… Miss Hawkeye… um… what… what is this?"

XXX

Rot.

Rotten tomatoes.

Rotting bread.

Rotting dead bird at the base of a tree where a stray cat had left the remainder of its meal.

Things rot after they die.

They turned wet and dank, like the hot, swampy feeling beneath his port.

They soaked up that wetness like a sponge, bloating and softening, until it was delicate enough that a gentle tug from a dog's teeth would break it away from the rest of him.

They changed color, from yellow to brown, from green to tan, from a healthy peachy shade to some sort of blackish-greenish mix.

Of course he had let Hayate get back to work doing whatever it was he was doing that made his aching, burning shoulder feel so placated. Perhaps Al had gone to get him something to drink. Yes, that was it. He had been about to say something absurd about taffy under Ed's shoulder port when he must have realized that he would accomplish so much more by fetching his sore, tired, ill older brother a cool glass of that amazing punch that was his because Colonel Bastard had gotten it for him and so it belonged to him-

And then he felt a second sharp twinge. It lasted longer than the first, and Hayate made odd snuffling, slurping noises, until the dog finally pulled the long, stringy patch of rot from beneath the metal and triumphantly spat it out onto the sheets next to Edward's leg, feeling quite pleased that it had not slipped to the back of his tongue again.

And Ed had stared bemusedly, from the dog to the thing and back again, not sure what to make of either of them… and then, out of human instinct, he'd gingerly picked up the patch of warm, slimy, material, stared at it, realized what it was, and almost instantaneously dissolved into a fit of abominated dry heaves, which quickly transformed into spasms, and Ed toppled face first onto the bed, burying his face in the pillows, shaking and choking and gagging.

They-he, his brother, and his mother-had buried the bird in the vegetable garden. Trisha had explained that when her flowers died, or the tomatoes turned gray and fuzzy, she would add them to what she called the _fertilizer_ and fed it to her garden to make the plants grow. Ed had quickly learned that fertilizer was made of rotten things, and that the rotten things were dead.

If it was rotten, it was dead.

If it was dead, it was rotten.

 _And then Mom died._

 _And dead things rot._

 _ **Mom is rotting.**_

Edward knew the stages of human decomposition. It was something he had been drilled on when he had first become a State Alchemist. It was a vital ability for an officer investigating a murder to be able to tell how long a body had been dead.

A day.

Two days.

A week.

A month.

A year.

 _Eight years_.

She was bones by now.

Maybe she still had a few traces of cartilage around the joints.

If there was any skin left, it was crumpled and dark, eaten away by bacteria and worms.

Those hands that had held him as she had carried him up to bed were nothing but jumbled segments and old, loose flesh.

Her eyes, always happy when they saw him, always bright, always beautiful, were completely gone. Only gaping holes in her face, teeming with maggots, was all that was left.

Her face. Her soft face, her smile, a grinning, putrid skull…

 _Things rot when they die._

 _Mom is dead. Mom is rotting._

 _ **And now I'm rotting, too**_.

XXX

"It'll be okay, Alphonse."

The suit of armor was staring at his soaked gloves. His brother's skin had been disposed of in the same manner as the one before it, with a tissue paper veil of its own. It probably was completely unnecessary, but he had washed his gauntlets in the bathroom sink, employing soap and water to take away any lingering trace of decay-of _death_ -still on the leather.

"It's just the outer part. We'll just scrub off the top layer, and new skin will grow in its place. That's all."

 _Dead things rot._

 _Brother is rotting._

 _Brother is dead._

 _Mom is dead._

 _And I am… I am…_

"Brother won't like it." He sounded so small. So young. He felt small and young. He _was_ small and young. He needed his big brother. But his big brother was rotting.

"I know. That's why Riza is going to clean his shoulder. He'll be fine, Alphonse. Everything will be fine."

And then, as if to contradict Roy's statement, the colonel heard the sound of someone being violently ill.

"Brother?"

"Stay here, Al."

"But-"

"Riza?"

"Yes, sir."

"But I want to-"

"Alphonse, you are clearly shaken, and I really don't think seeing you upset will help Edward in any way."

It hurt to admit, but Al knew Mustang was right. It would be better for both of them if he took the time to collect himself before checking on his brother. That knowledge didn't abate his worry in the least.

"You'll take care of him?"

Roy smiled softly. As he followed Hawkeye out of the kitchen, he said, "I absolutely will."

XXX

His retching proved to be only a response of panic, and he hadn't actually vomited, but the convulsions had hurt. Thankfully, the muscles did not stick for more than a few seconds afterwards; they were, after all, too damaged already to produce any proper contraction. His diaphragm had been a bit more stubborn.

Ed was breathing again, albeit winded.

"Come on, Ed, look at me."

Ed did not look at him. He kept his face squashed against the pillows.

"Okay, say something, at least."

He said nothing.

Roy sighed. He didn't bother telling the kid to sit up.

He made to sit on the edge of the bed. This was clearly going to take a while, so he might as well-

"Colonel."

-he changed his mind.

"Oh…"

Hayate whined. He was laying against Edward's side, his fur brushing the boy's undershirt. He had failed his mistress. He had not made the iron-smelling human happy, instead, the scent of fear had tripled from what it had been. He blinked balefully up at Riza, hoping for forgiveness and knowing full well he deserved none.

Mustang glanced at the dog.

"Looks like Hayate's doing a fine job on his own."

It was a grisly attempt at humor.

Riza fetched the third wad of tissue paper.

Roy sighed. He knew this balled-up behavior.

Whenever Edward was upset-not out of anger, he screamed when he was angry, this was more of a depressed, perhaps disturbed kind of distraught-he would shrink into himself, like a turtle into its shell, and, like the turtle, would not speak, would not move, so that he was more like a toppled trash can in a back alley, or an old piece of furniture sitting abandoned in the corner of a room: inanimate and of no significance to the skimming eye.

He had been in this state the first time Roy had seen him.

He had been smaller, then. Pale and limp from blood loss, empty spaces where his arm and leg should have been. It had hurt to see him like that: so sick and tired and unbearably forlorn.

It hurt to see him like this now.

"Its fine, Ed. It's just skin, it'll grow back."

No response.

Roy switched tactics.

"It's… a good thing. It's like… puking. It doesn't feel nice, and it's kind of disgusting, but after it's over, you feel better than ever!"

Nothing.

Fortuitously, Hawkeye chose that moment to return from the compost bin for the third time in ten hours.

The round, pleading eyes he cast upon her told her everything.

"No luck?"

Mustang shook his head. Riza studied Edward, wearing the same expression she often showed when contemplating a question on her opinion of a proposed law or the competency of some political campaigner. She walked slowly to the side of the bed, on the opposite of Roy, and lowered herself gracefully onto mattress-which she could do now that the… Edward recrement… had been removed (Mustang could not bring himself to follow her example after the trauma of nearly sitting on said dross).

"You're lucky. When my back was injured in the war, it took days for it to clear itself up, and it itched so badly, I would rub my back against the tent pole to get the spots I couldn't reach whenever Roy or the medics weren't looking."

"I remember that!" It had taken well into the sentence before Roy knew what in the absolute earth Riza was talking about. "The first time I caught you doing it, I thought you'd lost your mind and had decided to become a lap-dancer for some shady nightclub."

Roy's ears heard what his mouth spoke and his brain waited for a bullet to suddenly appear in his frontal lobe.

When Hawkeye looked at him, his tongue turned to pulp, and when she nodded and gestured for him to keep talking, he was stupefied to the point that it took the most primitive logistics of his intellect to understand that reality was broken and the end of all things urbane was nigh. Instead of running for his continued existence as his every survival instinct demanded, he obliged her-or tried to, at least.

"Um... well… you ended up ripping your bandages to shreds, so I just took 'em off." His face reddened at the memory. However, the thoughts that summoned the blood to his face hadn't surfaced until after he had redressed her. At the time he had been too worried about infection finding its way through the torn gauze to notice the potential intimacy of the situation-and had known that her discomfort was his fault, and therefore her wounds were his to tend to. "And half of your back came off with it! It was… unsettling…"

"But I felt much better afterwards," Hawkeye finished for him. "It certainly stung whenever the bandages had to be changed, but it didn't itch anymore."

"And the new skin underneath was pink and so smooth-"

His jaw snapped itself shut, but it was too late. Riza stared at him, startled, and then smiled and looked back at Ed, who was not quite as curled into himself as he had been.

Perhaps a broken reality wasn't so bad after all.

Edward mumbled something.

Riza leaned in to hear him more clearly. He repeated what he'd said, and she pulled back and gave Roy her familiar evil eye.

And reality had already begun fixing itself.

"What did he say?"

"He wants to know what a lap-dancer is."

Oops.

"Oh. Well, it's a… they're a..." _Do I have to answer?_ he mouthed.

 _Yes, you do,_ she returned.

"A lap-dancer is… someone who… dances… and people pay them… to dance."

He gave Riza a hopeless shrug. Her expression didn't change.

"Like in a show? The ones at the concert house that Al likes to watch?" Ed's voice was barely above a whisper, but strong enough that the colonel didn't need to ask his lieutenant what he had said.

"Yes," Mustang and Hawkeye said in unison. Although the mental picture of a suit of armor watching a lap dance nearly made him lose his composure.

Edward didn't say anything in response.

Impulsively, Roy's eyes wandered the room in search of inspiration for a subject with which to break the silence. His eyes landed on the forgotten bowl of soapy water, sitting lonely on the bedside table, and which had surely gone cold by now. He crossed the room to the table, opened the small drawer designed into its undercarriage, and took out a spare pair of ignition gloves.

"How many of those do you have?"

Edward's tired eyes stared at him over the pillow he had mashed his face into, and still hid his mouth and nose beneath, so that only his eyes and brow were visible. Roy wondered how he managed to breathe through all that insulation. He found himself smiling slightly, surprised at his pleasure the boy's responsiveness gave him.

"Well, you never know when some crazy anti-alchemy crusader will break into your house and try to chop off your head in your sleep… not that that's happened to me," he amended in reaction to Hawkeye's stricken face.

"But why would you need gloves up here when you're sleeping in your room downstairs?" Ed had raised his head completely from the pillow. His voice was still small and cautious, but some of his signature confidence had returned to it.

"In case the crazy anti-alchemy crusader finds the gloves in my room before I can get to them. I have a spare pair hidden in every room in the house."

Edward said nothing to this; instead his eyebrows tapered and his mouth thinned, an expression he wore when considering something he found of interest to the faction of his mind devoted to critical thought.

Leaving him to muse over whatever ponderings had appeared in his head, Mustang turned his attention to the bowl of cool soap-water. He pressed the index and middle fingers of his right hand to the complex array on the back of his left glove, carefully activating only the formulas related to heat, and cupped the side of the bowl with the palm of his left hand. After a few seconds, the water began to show signs of bubbling, and Roy quickly withdrew. He did not want to scald Fullmetal.

Ed watched silently as the water changed from room temperature to steaming in a matter of seconds. He was so fascinated by the chemical processes that had to have been elicited to make it so, that he did not notice Mustang pick up the syringe and hand it to Riza.

"We should probably sterilize it again."

"Oh. Right."

The colonel took back the syringe and dipped the needle into the bowl, and then Edward noticed.

He was too sore to scramble away, and the memory of his previous attempt to do so served as a lesson to keep still.

He ended up simply re-curling into his previous balled position, with the addition of his left hand covering his right shoulder protectively. The skin on his shoulder was tender and hot, and the metal was warm. His movements were slow and clumsy, and Mustang and Hawkeye watched him reform his shell despairingly. They had returned to the beginning of the predicament, or as Hughes would say when speaking of a case he was investigating, "back at Square One".

Roy, running the hand that was not holding the syringe through his bed-tousled hair, blew the air from his lungs between his slack lips, making a horse-like nicker sound of frustration. He knew openly displaying his annoyance was not going to help Fullmetal feel any less dolorous, but his patience, with himself as well as with Edward, and with the locus itself, was wearing thin to the point of shrinking out of existence entirely. And with his cache of equanimity all but run dry, he was unable to muster the restraint needed to keep his thoughts to himself.

"What is it that you want from me, Fullmetal? I got you out of the hospital, I let you sleep in my bed, I got you the most hopped up drink I could find that didn't have milk in it, and I let you eat my food...

"What is it? Are you afraid I might hurt you 'cause I don't know what I'm doing or something? Do you think I'll break your automail somehow?"

His breathing was quick when he finished his rant, and his head cleared enough for him to realize how dramatically he'd lost his composure. Sheepishly, he turned to Hawkeye, expecting to see reproach on her face. She did not look at him. She kept her gaze on Edward's back, her head tilted to the side in thoughtfulness.

"Are you afraid you might embarrass yourself?" Riza's voice was far gentler, far more understanding than his own had been. Roy's sense of shame deepened.

Neither Mustang's outbursts nor Hawkeye's calm question was offered a response. Roy took a breath to collect himself. He saw his hand out of the corner of his eye, his ignition glove still adorned. On spur of moment, he remembered that Ed, too, wore gloves: plain white gloves, to deter notice from his mismatched hands. He didn't like it when people asked him about his automail, nor did he enjoy repeating the cooked up story that Roy had invented for his certification documents; that he'd lost his right arm and left leg as collateral in the Ishval Civil War.

He didn't like it when others saw it, knew about it, wondered about it…

A thought occurred to him that he had never considered before.

"Edward… are you afraid that if we get a good look at your automail, we might… judge you for what happened to you and your brother? Maybe we'd see something that would make us think differently about you?"

Ed shifted. His head moved slightly, as if he were making to raise his face from the linens, but the motion was never performed. Roy cast Riza an inquiring expression. She returned it. Her countenance was similar to his, but held more depth, so that Roy could tell she was pondering something, but couldn't tell what. He thought, somewhere beneath her speculation, he saw a glow of pride in her eyes. The idea of her being proud of him garnered a warm, soft feeling at the bottom of his stomach. All too soon, she turned her face and her attention back to Edward.

"Edward, is what's bothering you… a little of all of those things?"

Ed shifted again. He was still for a few moments, before he moved his head in a minute, but definite, nod.

Riza smiled gingerly.

"There's no reason to be afraid. The colonel and I-sir?"

Mustang did not answer her.

Slowly, so as not to startle the boy, Roy lowered himself onto the bed. He lifted his legs over the mattress, so that his whole body was supported on the bed. He reached towards his right foot and began rolling up the ankle cuff of his pajama leggings.

"Colonel, you don't have to-"

She cut herself off.

Roy wasn't completely sure what possessed him to do what he was doing.

It could have been guilt.

It could have been sympathy.

But in later days, Mustang would attribute his actions most to a feeling of kinship. And with that kinship came a responsibility, and perhaps somewhat of a desire, to acknowledge that kinship. Even if it was a kinship based in tribulation.

Hayate watched Roy impassively. When the man began rolling up his pant leg, the dog's brow furrowed, making the bases of his ears coming closer together. He shuffled to his paws and trotted around Edward to the side of the bed where Roy was. Hayate stopped at Mustang's feet and stared at the exposed ankle, as if trying to decide what to think of it. After a few moments, he decided to sniff it. Then he decided to lick it. Roy emitted an uncharacteristic yelp, somewhere along the lines of, "Yeeh!"

Edward had discounted the rustling of the sheets and the vibrations in the mattress caused by Roy moving himself onto the bed, and the loss of warmth and softness that was Hayate leaving his side. But he could not overpass Mustang's "Yeeh!"

His head came out of his turtle shell of pillows and rounded back, and he stared incredulously.

Colonel Roy Mustang was pushing away a dog's head with his hand, while the dog tried to circumvent the hand to get to the bit of leg that had been uncovered from the man's pajamas, sticking his tongue out of his mouth whenever he got close.

"The hell?!"

Mustang's attention jerked involuntarily from Hayate to Edward. Before he could inwardly celebrate his success at getting Fullmetal to do _something_ , Hayate took the chance and began licking his ankle with gusto.

Roy yanked his leg away, pulling his knee into his chest, and glared at the dog.

"Lieutenant-"

"Sir, not to be rude, but it seems clear to me Hayate thinks you are in need of a bath. He probably thought you were asking him to give you a wash."

"I am not-!"

"You have yet to take your morning shower, sir."

Ed couldn't help himself.

"Yeah, Colonel Bastard, so keep your stinky old man feet away from me!"

Mustang's turned his black look on the boy.

"My feet don't stink! And I'm not old!"

The corners of Ed's mouth turned up in a cheeky smirk and he pressed his mouth and nose against a pillow, leaving his eyes twinkling impishly up at Roy.

"P. U.! Put on some shoes, Grandpa, your feet smell like old cheese!" His voice was muffled by cotton.

"Fullmetal-! "

Roy's expression balked, then transformed into a devilish sneer.

"You must have an impressive sense of smell, if you're able to smell anything at all over your own stench!"

"What-!"

"You've been sweating nonstop for the past fifteen hours! If my feet smell like cheese, then your armpits must smell like spoiled milk!"

"Why, you-"

"Yes, yes, we all need a good shower," Riza broke in.

"Especially the colonel's feet."

"Hey!"

"That's enough!"

They were silent then-not silence born of tension or awkwardness, but the type of quiescence that falls when the members of a conversation come to the agreement that the subject they had been talking about had grown old-or, rather, Hawkeye had decreed that the subject had grown old-and the next topic of discussion was yet to be decided.

And, as it often is with these silences, one of the members must break it, and in doing so introduce the new topic.

Roy's fingertips glided over his ankle. He only felt the thin plates of callouses because he was looking for them; the scar tissue had flattened and loosened over the years, but had yet to disappear entirely. He took a deep, filling breath, the kind of sigh that one performs to calm one's nerves right before doing something that one is not at all certain they know how or are ready to do. Ed recognized it for what it was, and became instinctively anxious. Mustang was about to tell him something personal, and Edward was sure he didn't want to know what it was, because hearing it would be awkward and heavy, and knowing it would keep that awkwardness and heaviness from leaving for days or years or possibly forever.

And yet his ears sharpened and his attention narrowed, so that the only stimuli he might process was from Roy, was made by Roy, was Roy himself, because, whether or not he admitted it or even knew of it, a part of him respected the colonel-respected him as a person, respected him as a soldier, respected him as an adult. That part of him wanted to hear what Mustang had to say, and he would value any advice that he might provide, even if he didn't like or agree with it. Colonel Roy Mustang told Major Edward Elric what to do and when to do it, and the major would listen and obey, because the colonel was his superior officer and he was duty-bound to obey him, but also because the colonel _knew_ what had to be done and he _knew_ when what was to be done should be done because the colonel was _right_. He had to be, it was his job. It was his place in Ed's world to be the one who was always right.

Well, him and Hawkeye… and Alphonse… and his mother…

"When I was in Ishval… actually, I was leaving Ishval, and Riza and Maes were with me… or at least, we were leaving what was left of Ishval…"

Roy had to pause to let himself take a second deep breath.

"We ran into a group of Ishvallan guerillas. Not the animal," he explained in response to Ed's raised eyebrow of disbelief, a movement which the rest of his face quickly emulated. The boy made a small chuffing sound of annoyed discomfort and rolled his face halfway back onto the pillow. "Guerilla troops are foot soldiers. They camouflage themselves and lay low until an enemy unit comes along, then ambushes them, usually with bayonets or knives or something like that. Anyway they attacked us, and I-"

"You snapped them to death, didn't you?"

The question wasn't an accusation and held no malice, but the way the boy had worded his guess on Roy's actions- _snapping_ someone to death, as if murder was as easy as walking or as natural as breathing, and at that point in his life, it had, in fact, been just so-made the Flame Alchemist's innards turn to ice.

"Yes," he forced passed his clenched throat, tasting the words as they slipped off his tongue, deliberately intensifying the sting of his confession. "I snapped them to death. Or at least, I thought I had. But I missed one."

 _He stood there, Maes on his right, Riza on his left, and tried to feel. He saw their blackened faces. He studied their boiled eyes. He drank in the smell of their smoldering viscera, and tried, with all his might, with every miniscule, despicable, vile particle of his being to feel something-_ anything, _be it regret or exhilaration, excitement or horror. But Mustang's mind and soul were blank. Not blank like a fresh sheet of paper that has yet to be printed upon, more like the desolation of the inside of an abandoned home or the silence within a newly dead corpse's chest. Roy Mustang was empty, for his being was ripped and holey, torn apart by what he had done and what he had seen and everything and anything he put inside himself would leak out and pool around his feet in puddle, so that he could see what he wanted, what he ought, to be feeling, but was unable to experience it._

 _And then he felt pain._

 _He cried out in shock and agony as his right ankle was speared by multiple miniature pikes. He looked down instinctively to acquaint himself with the bringer of this damage to his body-and his howl of pain transformed into an absolute scream of terrified abhorrence._

"It _bit_ you?" Edward's choice of words brought an odd feeling of aptitude to Roy's mentality. The creature, if it had ever before been human at all, had been far too charred for any gender-specific features to be discernable. Without knowing whether the pronoun "he" or "she" was appropriate, the default "it" was the most logical and simplest settlement. Roy told himself that was the only reason, and not because, in his mind, the thing was memorialized as a faceless monster with gnashing teeth, rather than a dying person whom _he_ had deformed.

He didn't believe himself for one second.

"Yes… _it_ bit me. Hard."

 _Maes had kicked it multiple times across the head, neck, and area that was once occupied by a face. But the jaws were stuck tight and the teeth cut deep, and all Hughes's efforts managed to do was exacerbate the wounds. Roy bellowed in pain as he felt the incisors tear the skin and top layer of muscle, and Riza finally grabbed Maes's shoulder and all but slung him away. She shot it through the brain, without bothering to aim. The chewing stopped, but the teeth stayed stuck in Roy's ankle. Hughes took it upon himself to cover his fingers in melted tissue and be punched in the back and shoulders involuntarily as he pried the creature's mouth away. Mustang stumbled into a sitting position during the procedure, and by the time it was done, he was sucking breath through pursed lips and growling deeply in his throat._

 _An oval-like outline of broken skin leaked thick trails of blood into Roy's boot. As the shock faded, Roy's head cleared enough for him to assess that the injury wasn't serious, and while the swelling had begun and looked to prove ugly, he could still move his lower leg-though he wasn't fool enough to think that walking on it was an option. The pain dulled from the sting of urgency to the throb of caution. He assured his companions he wasn't badly hurt, and they helped him upright and held him up, their arms under his, as they hobbled the rest of the way to the next checkpoint of deportation._

"When we got to the camp, I told Riza and Maes to go eat and rest, and that I could make it on my own to the medical tent. They didn't like it, but I made them go, and as soon as they had, I went looking for a place to sleep for the night."

Ed's face pulled round in an expression of addled chagrin.

"But-but you said you were going to the medical tent. You told Hawkeye!"

Roy grimaced.

"Yeah, I did. And believe you me, it came back to bite me in the butt."

"Or more literally, the ankle," Riza commented, her countenance showing neither smugness nor amusement.

"But why didn't you go?" Roy was surprised at the note of what he thought was disappointment in Edward's voice. He sounded oddly betrayed, as if he had found Alphonse in a shady casino in the dead of night, and Roy felt ashamed of himself, like he had let his major down somehow.

He also felt like Maes would have been immensely gratified if he had been present for the conversation.

"Because… I didn't go because I was embarrassed."

Ed snorted. "Well, that's stupid. It's not like you tripped and skinned your knee like a pansy. You were injured in battle! And that's what the medical tent is for!"

Mustang couldn't help his smile. Saying he had been "injured in battle" made the idea of the situation sound considerably more honorable and intriguing.

"I wasn't embarrassed because I'd been injured. I was embarrassed because of _why_ I'd been injured. I killed people," he elaborated in response to Ed's furrowed brow. "Lots of people. More than I could count, even if I tried. I felt like… like I _deserved_ to be injured. Like maybe, if I forced myself to feel the pain, I could redeem myself somehow. If I just accepted my punishment, then maybe I could just move on from what I'd done, and everyone around me could, too."

"That is a twisted way of thinking, Mustang," Edward said, though there was no conviction in the words, and what little expression Roy could interpret on what he could see of the boy's face, which he still kept hidden in a damp pillow, appeared fabricated. Roy felt a small flare of prideful accomplishment bloom inside him.

Edward had heard what Roy had left unspoken.

"It's not like you _wanted_ to barbecue them," Edward stumbled out of his pretended ignorance and into his safe haven of logistical thought. "You were following orders from the Fuhrer himself. Besides, _you_ werethe ones being attacked that time. You were just defending yourself."

"Yes, well…" Mustang sighed wearily. "I was thinking kinda twisted at the time."

There was a contemplative silence.

"So, I left the bite alone. I didn't bandage it, the bleeding had already stopped on its own anyway. I did wash it in the shower, but other than that, I acted like it didn't exist. No one could see it when I was in my uniform, what with the standardized long pants and all. It was like that for a couple of weeks."

"And then?" Ed's tone was impatient. "You'd better have started this damn monologue for a good frickin' reason, so hurry your ass up and get to it."

Roy couldn't help himself. He laughed. Ed glared with strong annoyance.

"The wound became infected," Riza detailed while Roy recovered himself. "The inside of the human mouth is an incredibly dirty place. Or so Havoc told me," she clarified in response to the offended stares the men cast upon her.

"Are you saying I have bad hygiene?"

"No, sir, it is a generalization-"

"Though it is terrible-"

"Edward! Since when does Havoc know anything about 'the human mouth' or otherwise?"

"Since he took Rudimentary Field Medicine at the academy. In fact, he told me this after I consulted him about your limp."

Roy said nothing, his fingers unconsciously rubbing at the scars on his ankle.

After a minute of contemplation, he said, "That must have been when you started badgering me about getting it looked at."

"It was, sir. But," she continued, turning her attention to Edward, "it wasn't until his foot became so swollen he couldn't put his shoe on that Hughes and I decided to do it for him."

Mustang emitted a sheepish sigh.

"You took him to the medical tent?" Edward prompted.

"No, we didn't," Riza corrected, and Ed tilted his head curiously. "We treated the wound ourselves."

 _Roy didn't need a doctor to tell him he was sick._

 _He felt like a hot air balloon: stuffy and bloated, with no place for the accumulating warmth to escape. Despite the heat inside him, his skin felt cold and he shivered in his uniform._

 _But illness wasn't an anomaly on the front line. Mustang needed more than one hand to count off the number of times either he or another member of his team-or both-had taken battle stations when racked with indigestion or fever-or both. No one, not even himself, took much notice to his sweaty forehead and chattering teeth. Probably just another filthy field virus. He'd flush it out of his system in a couple of days or so. Nothing to gossip about._

 _His foot, however, was a different story entirely._

 _It looked like a piece of a dead body: a grotesque crimson color, and swollen near the point of bursting. He had been unable to squash it into his boot this morning. The past three days he had managed to coerce it into his shoe, but each attempt had become more arduous and painful than the last, and on this day he hadn't managed it at all. After multicolored stars had exploded behind his eyes and his empty stomach had convulsed warningly, he had decided that the risk wasn't worth the effort. His already-two-sizes-too-large wool sock hid the distended tarsal from the view of any possibly passing physician. There was very little they would have been able to do for his fever, besides forcing him to swallow an aspirin, which he could, and already had, done on his own._

 _However, there were many things a general practitioner would have insisted on doing to his diseased foot-and none of them were even distantly related to pleasant._

 _When Hawkeye came to him bearing a tin mug of willow tea, Roy accepted it without argument. Hopefully the mixture would make him break into a sweat. That was what he'd heard the stuff was supposed to do, anyway. It tasted bitter, like all tea served without sugar or cream._

 _Riza said something about his tent, but her words were muffled by the buzzing sound in his ears. He made no protest as his lieutenant guided him to stand and led him gently by the elbow to his cot. She steadied him whenever he stumbled over his mismatched feet. It was surprisingly awkward walking with only one shoe._

 _The air was stuffy in the tent he shared with Maes. Hughes was waiting for them, dressed casually in an undershirt and dirty trousers, his uniform foregone on the end of his bed. Riza lowered Roy into his own cot, and Roy rolled onto the blankets, not bothering to tuck himself in or kick off his one shoe, and closed his eyes. He was vaguely aware of Hawkeye gently removing his boot and his socks._

 _His injured foot sparked statically at the friction._

 _Roy sat up sloppily; he had already been sinking into restless doze, and his body had turned slack in preparation of sleep. He did not want Hawkeye or Hughes to see his foot. In his half-conscious state, he couldn't quite remember why, but the feeling was urgent, whatever its reasoning. Roy tried to push Riza away from the cot. He missed entirely and his arm flapped out to the side. Unbalanced, he tilted and began to slump off the bed. Maes caught him and lifted his torso onto the mattress so that Roy was lying on his back again, and placed firm hands over Mustang's chest._

 _Roy reflexively wrapped his wrists over Hughes's and tried to pull his hands away. He thought he said something along the lines of "Go touch your own teats," but his lips had felt floppy on his face, and whatever he did say didn't have an effect on Maes._

 _He heard the scrape and flare of a match being lit, and out of the corner of his blurry vision, he thought he saw the glint of steel._

 _Roy bawled in terror and started thrashing madly._

"You tried to cut his foot off?!" Edward's voice was squeaky from horror, and his facial muscles twitched madly. He smashed his mouth and nose into the pillow to stymy the spasms, but left his eyes uncovered, their wide gawking delivering the words his mouth couldn't say.

"No, no, of course we didn't," Hawkeye quickly, but gently, asserted. "All we did was reopen the wound and drain out the infection."

"Although I was pretty certain that that was what they meant to do," Roy said deep in his throat, whether to himself or not, he himself couldn't say.

Ed's rounded eyes softened. His gaze darted momentarily to his right shoulder. Riza interpreted the gesture, but said nothing.

Edward lifted the pillow from his face slightly, to keep his voice from being muffled.

"How… how exactly does that work? The drainage thing?"

He wasn't sure if the Rockbells had ever performed the procedure on him. If they had, he clearly did not remember.

"Exactly how it sounds. We just cut the wound on Roy's ankle and all the pus and blood just came out. Well, most of it. We had to squeeze out the last of it."

Both Mustang and Edward stared at her with wrinkled noses.

"Eew," Ed said, giving voice what he and Roy were thinking.

Riza simply shrugged placidly.

"Better out than in."

Neither man disagreed with her on that.

There was about a half minute of contemplative silence.

Edward did not want to ask. It was a childish question, and he felt small and infantile merely by wondering, but as it usually does curiosity got the better of him; not to mention the more ratiocinative part of his brain knew it was a perfectly lawful question to ask, and something that he probably ought to know given his position.

"Did… did it hurt badly?"

Roy did not laugh as Ed had feared. In fact, he pursed his lips and his gaze grew distant with consideration.

"Well… it didn't hurt the way you'd imagine it. Actually, at the start it didn't really hurt at all. It felt more like… You know the pins and needles you get when your foot falls asleep?"

Ed nodded, he was feeling it strongly in his shoulder.

"It was like some gust of wind blew them away, or someone poured a bunch of water over my ankle and washed them away. To be completely honest… it felt pretty nice. The only thing that really did hurt was when they started pinching me."

"Squeezing, sir, not pinching. We had to get all of the infection out to keep-"

"Yes, yes, Lieutenant, we get the idea," Mustang waved away the rest of her sentence.

"But… why didn't you take him to the medical tent and have the doctors do the drainage thing?" said Edward, bemused. "Wouldn't've it been safer? I mean, you didn't have any training. What if you'd made a mistake? What if you'd _actually_ cut his foot off?"

"Because there was a good chance the field doctors would have actually cut his foot off."

Mustang's face paled at Hawkeye's words, and he unconsciously tightened his hand around his ankle.

"The field physicians were only slightly more skilled than we were. The number of casualties from the war was so high that every citizen who at least knew how to wrap a bandage was conscripted for the medical team. Gangrene and sepsis are death sentences when you're on the front, and there were so many injuries to treat. The doctors didn't have the time, resources, or the training to deal with wounds that were already diseased. So if they came across any, the fastest and simplest way to prevent blood disease was to cut off as little of the damaged body part they could, cauterize and bandage the patient and send them home as a war veteran."

The seriousness of the colonel's situation hit Edward like turning his face into a cold shower. He knew what "war veteran" meant, he'd seen caravans of them pass through Resembool en route for Central Command-where their relief papers would be signed and pended, and they would be retired with a disability pension.

If Mustang had gone to the medical tent, he wouldn't have lost just a foot. He would have lost his career as well.

"If it wasn't for Havoc, and his semester of field medicine at the academy, we wouldn't have known what to do. He would've done it for us, but as a matter of fact, he was on duty as a physician at the time, and there was no way the higher-ups would forgive him if he gave a particular soldier more attention than the others. Even if he was his commanding officer. So Maes and I handled it in secret."

"I'm surprised you didn't gag me," Roy eyed Riza askance. "I can't imagine no one noticed the noise, what with me swearing and throwing punches at you two."

"Oh, they did, sir." Hawkeye smiled in an assuming way that made the colonel and major decidedly nervous. "I told them you were choking your chicken. They did not inquire further."

"YOU TOLD THEM _WHAT_?!"

Edward reflexively jerked at the sudden outburst. A cross between a hiss and a whine rose to his throat as his shoulders, neck, and back tightened and refused to relax. He managed to stifle everything but a small squealing sound. The adults immediately forgot their impending confrontation and turned their attention to Ed.

"It's fine. I can still breathe," he said when Roy reached a hand out as if to touch him. The rasping of his voice betrayed him to be half-lying.

"Why did you tell them I was… that I was…?" Mustang couldn't get the words out as he slowly rolled Edward onto his back.

The boy's teeth were completely bared. The corners of his mouth were pulled back as far as they would go.

"It's not as if they thought any less of you, sir. Many of them did so whenever they had the time for it-"

"But the fact that you knew-what were they supposed to make of that?!"

"If any of them so much as considered it, I would have made sure they wouldn't have a cerebrum to keep doing it, and they knew it."

"Well, yes, but…"

Edward did not know what the adults were arguing about, a situation that happened often and one he found incredibly annoying. He liked to think of himself at equal status with the grown-ups, but when a topic such as the current one somehow found its way to the surface of a discussion, Ed's illusion to himself would be discredited and he would be reminded of the unclimbable wall between him and his colleagues. There were some things about the world that he did not understand for the infuriatingly simple reason that he had not lived long enough in the world to know about them. He did his best to catch up when and where he could, through reading and, with only a very, very select few; asking questions.

He raised his right hand, intending to poke Hawkeye's arm to get her attention (she was, after all, the one who had introduced the topic, so it was only appropriate that he ask her). It was his growl of pain as the tight skin of his shoulder was pulled by movement rather than Riza being poked that made the adults forget their conversation.

"Edward?"

Ed winced, made a clumsy attempt for a swallow, and winced again. His face and neck ached horribly.

"'ha'-"Hearing his own fractured speech, Ed huffed in annoyance and brought his automail hand to his face, intending to pry his jaws apart. Hawkeye moved to stop him; his sore port beat her to it, he hissed in pain and returned his arm to his side.

Mustang grimaced. Edward's mouth was clamped shut; a classic symptom, and the reason why tetanus was often nicknamed "lockjaw." Guilt hollowed Roy's chest. He'd lost his head for a mere second and forgotten to keep his voice low.

Ed tried again.

"'ha's 'a' mea'?"

Roy and Riza glanced at each other.

"Umm…"

"'I'en! 'ou 'o'ed 'e 'I'en!"

Mustang consulted his brain for a translation. Receiving none, he tried to think of ways to at least _pretend_ he'd understood for the sake of placating his major, when the door opened a fraction and a spiky iron head stuck itself into the room.

"He wants to know what 'choking the chicken' means."

Alphonse's appearance was so sudden, the colonel and his lieutenant were too taken aback to respond.

"Alphonse!" Roy collected himself first. Edward did not seem to be phased at all by the fact his brother had been eavesdropping. It later occurred to him that Fullmetal had probably known the entire time. "I thought I told you to wait in the kitchen."

Al decided to act like he hadn't heard the accusation. Instead, he looked eyelessly at the colonel expectedly. Roy turned to Edward. Save for the strained face, Fullmetal's expression was no different.

"So… are you going to tell us what 'choking the chicken' means?" Al repeated patiently.

Riza couldn't stop the grin that broke over her countenance.

Roy buried his face in his hands and moaned.

XXX

While Mustang's exemplum undoubtedly softened Edward, a fair amount of coaxing was needed before he would lay down on his left side, allowing Riza access to his injured shoulder. Taking heed from his lesson for that day, Roy decided to keep Ed distracted with an anecdote about one of Havoc's more disastrous trysts. By the time he got to the part when the man accidentally dropped his cigarette on the tablecloth and scared the entire residence of the café, staff and patrons alike, with the ensuing smoke, Edward was too busy laughing to notice Hawkeye administering the anti-toxin (the numbness caused by the swelling played a large role in that as well).

However, the colonel found it surprisingly difficult not to stare as Riza began scrubbing rather roughly beneath the boy's automail port. The scree that began appearing on the cloth inspired some sort of morbid fascination within him; it was hard to look at yet hard to look away from, like a decomposing bird or someone's disfigured face. The perturbing spell met its match once Hawkeye found the heart of the infection and it burst open. Edward's eyes turned glassy and slid shut, and he made deep humming sound in his throat, almost like a cat's purr.

"Wh't 'dya do? Felt _amazin'_ ," he slurred languidly. Black Hayate decided at that moment that he wanted to help too, and before Riza could stop him the dog started lapping up the mess, and Roy had to quickly leave the guestroom before he covered it with half-digested breakfast.


	10. Chapter 10

**This is the last super long chapter. This is ridiculous. You people shouldn't have to wait a year in between chapters. Therefore, I hereby induce a 10-page-limit on chapters of this story. This, along with my newer, faster computer that I got for my birthday, should speed up updates for this story.**

 **I have a couple of one-shots planned out and am finalizing the details of an original novel I'm hoping to publish someday, so I don't know how well these expectations will be fulfilled.**

 **This chapter is boring. It's just a bunch of talking and science and talking and I have let you all down I'm a failure just like my potential in life I'm a 21-year-old autistic single who can't get out of bed before noon or do simple math without a calculator it is late I should go to sleep now.**

* * *

"Brother, are you _sure_ you don't need any help?"

"Alphonse, _go away_!"

"But what if you start… you know… You won't be able to shout for anyone then. You'll suffocate on the floor! That's it, I'm coming in!"

" _Al, no! I'm pissing!"_

"You're standing up?!"

"What? Of course I'm not! I can't-can't fit in the bastard's tiny outhouse of a W.C. at my full height."

Alphonse was not fooled by his brother's clumsy attempt of a save.

He was about to turn the doorknob when he heard the toilet flush. After a few seconds of what sounded like the sloppy adjustment of clothing, Edward bade him entry, albeit in a rather strained voice.

Ed lay crumpled on the bathroom floor, if it hadn't been for the absence of the mandatory thud that typically accompanies a falling body while Al had waited on the other side of the wall, he would have assumed his brother had slipped off the lavatory. Alphonse kneeled, his body creaking, and gingerly scooped his brother off the cold tiles and cradled him against his breastplate. He took care to straighten himself slowly, and began carrying his older brother back to his bed.

Edward's flesh hand was curled into a tight fist and his neck muscles were pulling so vigorously that the tendons pushed against his skin as if they were trying to pop out. The effect on his face gave the impression that Ed was imitating a particularly curious turtle-like expression that, under normal circumstances, Alphonse would have found quite comical. But these were not normal circumstances and Al did not laugh.

Ed's eyes were closed, the lids twitching feverishly, and he pressed his pounding forehead against his brother's cool, hard chest. Ever since waking that morning, (this was his second day in residence of Mustang's house and the time was approximately one in the afternoon) Edward's body had been ticking nonstop. The muscle relaxant from the previous day had worn off, and his reviving muscles were making up for disregarded stimuli with a vengeance. His throat felt inflated, like he was about to yawn but never performed the action, and his head felt squeezed, as if he was wearing an iron band smaller than the circumference of his skull.

"How are you feeling, Brother?"

Alphonse did not think Ed's pallor was an indication of good health.

Ed did not bother to lie when the truth could literally be seen on his face.

"Thirsty."

"I'll get you some punch, we still have some left, and Mr. Hughes will be by with more in a little while. Do you think you could eat something? You didn't have breakfast this morning."

Eating _hurt_.

He'd managed two bites of the toast Al had made for him. His jaw felt stiff and loose at the same time and his esophagus burned when he swallowed. He was beginning to form a habit of taking a deep breath (or as deep as he could without causing himself pain or sending himself into respiratory spasms) before swallowing, a process which was surprisingly tedious and exhausting despite its simplicity. Overall, the entire affair was unpleasant and so he wished to avoid it.

But he was _famished_. And that was just about as equally unpleasant as eating.

He couldn't distinguish the worst of the two evils.

"No."

Alphonse's armor hesitated in its walking for only a fraction of a second, but Ed knew his brother, had known him since birth, and so he noticed it, and knew Al was frightened. Because Edward loved food. He never refused a meal, no matter its ingredients, unless it tasted of milk or something was wrong. Which there was.

And then Al had an idea.

"What about _ice cream_ for breakfast, Brother?" He did his best to make the offer sound seductive and titillating, as if they were small children left unsupervised while their mother went to market. "I bet I could convince Mr. Hughes to pick some up for you on his way here."

 _And you won't have to chew it and it's cold so it'll make your throat feel better._

Edward's eyes very quickly turned from clouded and tired to hopeful and glittering.

This was why he loved his brother. _So much_.

"Yes, Al. Please."

Al hastened his steps, his worry had been replaced by happy excitement. If Ed was still able to crave desserts, maybe he wasn't so broken after all.

Al propped up his brother with pillows upon returning him to the guest bed. He considered pulling up the blanket but decided against it; Edward was currently experiencing a rare respite in his sweating and Alphonse didn't want to end it too soon.

"Stop it. 'm fine," Ed mumbled when Al started triple-checking that his brother was comfortable. "Ice cream," he added, as if Alphonse had forgotten and he was reminding him.

"Of course, Brother. What flavor would you like?"

"Vanilla. With strawberries. And nuts."

Alphonse paused. Edward expected him to refuse, and to say that that was unhealthy.

"Absolutely, Brother."

XXX

" _Ice cream?!_ "

"Please, sir, he hasn't eaten all day and he's so sore-"

"No, Alphonse. You misunderstand me. Your brother-the _milk-hater_ -likes _ice cream_?"

Al mentally took a deep breath. It was surprising how often he had to explain this trick of Edward's dynamism, and how quickly doing so became annoying and boring.

"Brother says that once it's sweetened, frozen and mixed with oils and fruits, it's not milk anymore."

"But it's the prime ingredient-"

"Is a jar of jam a bunch of grapes?" Al's voice sounded perhaps a little more irritated than he'd meant it to.

"Well, no…" Hughes began rather meekly. "The grapes have been smashed and pickled in honey and sugar-"

"Then if a jar of jam isn't the same as a bunch of grapes, ice cream isn't the same as milk, now is it?"

There was a silence that was half defeated, half triumphant.

"Any specific flavors?"

Al relayed his brother's request.

Maes whistled into the phone.

"That's a tall order, isn't it?"

" _Brother wants ice cream-_ "

"And he'll get it!"

Alphonse's words had sounded suspiciously like the beginnings of a threat, and Hughes preferred _not_ having a ten-foot spiky invulnerable golem stampeding through his nightmares.

"Is Roy or Riza nearby?"

"The colonel's sleeping while pretending to do paperwork and Miss Hawkeye's snuggling Black Hayate while pretending to oil her gun."

Hughes chuckled jovially.

"Why don't you go ask them what kind of ice cream they want while pretending to catch them goldbricking?"

"That's a lot of ice cream."

"You guys need to keep your spirits up over there, and that's what ice cream was invented for! At least, that's what Gracia says when it's her… Anyway, Havoc's coming with me today, there's something that needs to be brought over. And while we're on the topic of my beautiful wife, you won't _believe_ what our darling little girl did today-"

Alphonse very quickly hung up the phone.

XXX

"Colonel? Mr. Mustang? Excuse me?"

The man might as well have been comatose. Ed tended to snore when he slept-he usually started a couple hours after losing consciousness and would typically continue to do so until he woke up. Unless Al pinched the bridge of his nose to shut him up. Which he almost always did.

When words failed to rouse his brother in the morning, Alphonse would proceed to poking his face or shaking his shoulders. However, he felt such behavior most likely inappropriate for a high ranking officer. So he skipped the second method and employed the frequently used Plan C: he picked up the nearest book, a thick volume lying open on the desk next to Mustang's inert fingers (he closed the book upon lifting it), raised it about five feet above the table, and dropped it without ceremony.

It hit the surface of the desk with an inconsiderate _BANG_!

A heartbeat later, the chair Roy had been sleeping in was broken, Al's breastplate had a new scuff mark, and Mustang was upright, his eyes wide and his brow wet with cold sweat.

The only sound in the sixty second silence that followed was the colonel's heavy breathing.

"Mr. Hughes wants to know what flavor of ice cream you want." He tried to keep his voice casual and oblivious, but a small thread of apprehension slipped through. If Mustang noticed, he showed no sign of it.

Roy blinked slowly, swallowed, licked his lips, and nodded his head as if Alphonse had just given him a status report for an assignment.

"Chocolate."

He looked away self-consciously, saw his chair was missing two of its legs, and a look of childish disappointment crossed his face.

"I'll get it," Al said quickly and clanked over the chair, creaking as he crouched beside it. One transmutation circle drawn with chalk from within his left gauntlet later, the furniture was repaired, and Al replaced it behind the desk with all the stateliness of a butler.

"There. Good as new," he pronounced gently. Roy only nodded briskly in response.

"Um… I guess… I'll go ask Miss Hawkeye what ice cream she wants," Alphonse stumbled awkwardly.

Roy swallowed again and cleared his throat.

"I'll go check on Edward."

They both left the room without saying anything more.

XXX

Edward was having tea with his family.

They were sitting on the couch in the living room of his childhood home.

Trisha was telling a story, her eyes bright and her voice melodious, though what she was saying, Ed couldn't make sense of; her voice sounded clouded and distant, as if they were underwater. Hoenheim sat stiffly, a statue of himself, never smiling, expression blank. Alphonse-both of him- sat next to Edward on the sofa opposite their parents.

The armor looked barbaric, almost bestial, next to its flesh facsimile: tiny ten-year-old Al, as gentle and pure as Edward remembered him.

The fact that he was sharing a repast with two little brothers, his estranged father, and his long-lost mother did not reach him as bizarre in the slightest.

Such is the nature of dreams.

At some point, Trisha must have finished her narrative because her voice became clear and sharp, and her words would stay with her son, even after he'd woken.

"It's a shame I died so soon. I would have loved to see my little man earn his pocket watch."

Edward felt sorrow, for himself and for his mother, and then it was replaced by glowing excitement when he realized she _could_ see it. He reached into the pocket with his right hand-it flashed pink and silver, as if it couldn't make up its mind about whether it was organic or artificial-and pulled out the State-issued watch with a living hand he could not feel.

"Here it is, Mom!" He stretched his arm out, precuring the metal device. "D'you wanna hold it? You can if you want."

Trisha did not take the watch.

She giggled, a heart-tickling sound that made Edward feel proud of himself; he'd made his mother laugh, even if he'd accomplished it by doing something incredibly foolish-like the time he'd tried to do the laundry all by himself and ended up flooding the front yard with bubbles.

"Oh, sweetheart, don't you remember? I'm dead."

Edward pulled back. The way she said it, so casually, so matter-of-fact, was almost offensive. Except that Trisha Elric was incapable of being impolite.

"But… but you're _here_ \- "

"Yes, dear, but I'm only visiting. I'll have to go back to the cemetery soon enough."

Edward stared at the serpent design on his watch, feeling small and childish.

"Oh… do you _have_ to go back?"

It came out as a whine. This only made Trisha laugh some more.

"Yes, I do. It is, after all, quite exhausting to die twice."

Her revelation gave Edward pause.

"Die… _twice_?"

"Don't you remember, Brother?" Little Alphonse, who had been sitting silently next to his steel duplicate, spoke in his high-pitched prepubescent voice.

"You brought Mom back and she died again. And I died, too."

Edward did not have a chance to respond.

Hoenheim stood up abruptly and loomed over his eldest child like one of the great bears that lived in the Briggs mountains. He placed his large, heavy hands on his son's shoulders. They were warm and solid.

And then the man's nails were digging into his shoulder.

Edward could not open his mouth. He could not yell at his father to stop. His right arm, now decisively automail, wrapped its nerveless fingers around Hoenheim's wrist and pulled the man's hand away. Hoenheim paused for a moment, then calmly removed his other hand from Ed's other shoulder and used it to pry away the boy's grasp. Ed noted he did this by aiming his strength at the joints of the fingers, where maneuverability was priority over durability.

He held his son's arm in his own big fist, and plunged his fingernails, as keen as talons, back into his shoulder. A dog-like yelp of pain escaped through Ed's teeth and Hoenheim paused a second time. Ed did not waste his chance wondering why. He ripped his arm free of his father and sent it pummeling into the center of the man's chest.

Mustang made a sound between a cough and a gag, and collapsed onto the floor.

XXX

Roy stared at the book in his hands.

He didn't know why he had a heavy university textbook titles _Human Biology_ in his study, perhaps he had grabbed it absent-mindedly while perusing one of those free-book-giveaways that the book shop or the library did sometimes.

However it had ended up there, Roy had found it while looking for something that might prove insightful towards their situation. His effort was both a success and a failure. The book did contain a chapter on the nervous system, unfortunately the book was clearly meant for a student who had taken certain prerequisites prior to attending a class that would list that book under required materials. He kept on having to use his finger as a bookmark while he used his free hand to flip through pages to the glossary.

Roy glanced at Edward. True to his word, the colonel had taken the younger brother's place as vigil. Fullmetal's face shone with sweat and the fingers of his left hand twitched like they were searching for something. Mustang looked back at the book, decided it was worth one more try, sighed, and started looking for the page he'd been on when he'd stopped for a break to clear his head of medical jargon and protein functions-and may or may not have taken a short nap.

He passed over the section on the spinal cord… not what he was looking for.

Something about "helper cells" … no.

Blood-brain barrier… Roy was certain he did _not_ want to know what that was.

He caught the term _sarcolemma_ and stopped.

" _Muscles are made up of bundles of fibers called sarcolemma. Each sarcolemma is innervated by its own neuron, or nerve cell, called a motor neuron (for more information on sarcolemma, see Chapter 9: The Muscular System)."_

"Damn school books and their damn references. Why don't they just put the whole thing together instead of making me go back and forth through their _amazing coffer of knowledge?_ " Roy quoted a critic's remark that had been slapped onto the book's cover. His sarcasm was lost on Edward, who swallowed stiffly in his sleep.

Mustang noticed his jaw was clenched.

He turned back to the book.

" _Like any other neuron, electrical signals from the dendrites are transferred to the cell body and then the axon, where channel gates open, trading sodium for potassium as the ions travel down their concentration gradients (if you recall from earlier in the chapter_ -Roy did not recall, he had not read earlier chapter- _this is what creates the electric chemical signals we call 'nerve impulses'). However, unlike in other neurons, the axon terminals of a motor neuron meet with a specific section of the sarcolemma called the sarcoplasmic reticulum. The sarcoplasmic reticulum is a storage unit for the ion calcium."_

Mustang couldn't stop himself from snorting.

"Is the doctor sure _this_ isn't what's wrong with you?"

Edward's body was tensing and untensing in a bizarre unconscious exercise. His shoulders would pull into his torso and would hold for a millisecond before melting into relaxation, then would pull back in just as fast. Roy watched in macabre fascination until he remembered that Fullmetal wasn't doing body tension therapy. The boy's insides were moving with a mind of their own. The thought made him feel ill.

He kept reading.

" _Impulses from the motor neuron stimulate gated channels within the sarcolemma, releasing the calcium, which binds to troponin, forming tropomyosin."_

Roy didn't care.

He continued to flip through the chapter, and stopped near the end. The last section before the chapter review was on neurological diseases. It didn't take him long to find the paragraph he was looking for.

" _Tetanus, or lockjaw, is a condition caused by a powerful toxin produced by the bacteria_ clostridium tetani _. The toxin, called tetanospasmin, acts by blocking the release of the inhibitory transmitter, GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid). Since GABA is the primary inhibitor in the nervous-muscular system, the toxin tetanospasmin affects nearly every muscle in the body. With GABA channels inoperable, the motor neurons are unable to prevent the muscles from contracting when undesired. A person infected with tetanus will experience near constant involuntary spasms. These spasms are extremely painful and can be life-threatening if they reach the diaphragm. Treatments aim to kill the infection- "_

Oh, this was _not_ helping.

Roy made to slam the book closed so that the text could feel his frustration, caught himself, and pressed the pages together slowly and softly. Perhaps he should have gone ahead and snapped the book closed roughly. Because of his carefulness, his eyes, without his volition, caught the last sentence of the paragraph: " _20%-50% of patients with generalized tetanus will die."_

 _20%-50% will die._

 _20%-50% will die._

 _Die._

 _Die._

He tried to think about something else.

The snap of wood breaking and the scream of scratched steel as Roy, unconsciously but just as intentionally, tried to brain Alphonse Elric with his study room chair. If the boy had been flesh he could have at least broken open his throat.

That was why Roy had grabbed the medical book and moved to the guestroom, because the alternative was thinking about how close he had been to killing someone he was supposed to protect.

Mustang seemed to have an extreme talent for that, he mused as he glanced at Fullmetal.

The boy's chest and shoulders were still clinching and letting go. His automail arm had migrated to his chest and had clasped a fistful of his shirt, as if trying to grab the insubordinate muscles and physically subdue them.

Roy, with deep-washing relief tinged with selfish guilt, thought of a different productive distraction.

He retrieved the lye-coated soup bowl and half-melted bar of soap from the bathroom, stopping to refill the bowl with warm water from the tap and snatch a fresh cloth out of the drawers before returning to the guestroom.

Now that Riza had taken care of the initial, more graphic phase of the drainage process, the colonel couldn't imagine the follow-up to be any worse. Besides, Ed was asleep. Best to get it out of the way while he wasn't aware and able to flip off anyone who tried to help with something he insisted he could do himself-which was pretty much everything under the sun. And probably above it, too.

And he'd seemed to find Hawkeye's ministrations soothing, even therapeutic, judging by his pacified reaction.

Maybe he could even take care of the injection of anti-toxin while he was at it.

XXX

By the time they reached the colonel's townhouse, Jean Havoc's fingers were numb with cold. Jean held the paper mache tray carrying paper cups of ice cream, a carry-bag protecting a stack of paperwork sitting between his feet. Maes sat beside him in the driver's seat, happily chatting away about work life and family-mostly his family-as they made their way to Mustang's residence. As Jean struggled out of the car, the tray wet with condensation from the freezing cups, he wished it were his ears that had lost feeling instead.

"I wish I could compromise with my work partners the way Roy does with the lieutenant," Maes said, stopping to grab the carry-bag from beneath the passenger seat of his car and sling it onto his shoulder before walking with Havoc to the front door. "General Grand gave me one nasty phone call this morning."

Jean grimaced.

"What did he want?"

He was giving Hughes his full attention now. Office gossip was much more interesting than hearing about a one-year-old babbling" Dadadadada" while eating mashed peas.

"He demanded to know why I haven't returned to Central yet." Maes opened the door to the house and let Jean enter first. " _'The cows have come home, and the crooks are in the pokey, why are you still there?'_ First, I told him that isn't how people in the countryside talk, and to please not to be so stereotypical and offensive. He told me I could go pleasure myself, I told him I don't need to, Gracia does a fine job- "

"Sir, please!" If Jean hadn't reached the small kitchen table, he would have dropped the tray on the floor.

"Right, sorry, sorry, off topic. I told him I was working on a local case, you know that jewelry shop break-in that happened over the weekend? And since the East County Fair has started making its rounds, I thought I'd take the opportunity to pay Roy a visit and let my girls have some fun for a few days. But then… well, you know," he gestured vaguely at the house," and so I told Grand that I'm staying for a family emergency."

While Hughes had been speaking, Black Hayate had trotted into the kitchen to greet the newcomers, his tail wagging happily. Havoc had leaned over to pet the dog between his ears. When Maes finished his sentence, Jean jerked his head up to stare at the man in incredulity, lost his balance, and landed on his buttocks on the tiled floor.

"You _lied_ to the Iron Blood Alchemist?!"

"What?! No! Of course not!" They were both on the floor now, Jean sitting and Maes crouching, and Hayate's eyes were closed in delight as Hughes scratched the back of his neck. "I would never lie to a superior officer. Maybe tell a half truth or say nothing at all, but never lie. That would set a horrible example for my baby girl!"

"But you said you had a family emergency. You don't have any family in East City."

"Sure, I do. Roy-Boy is like a brother to me, and Ed is his kid… major… thing. So that makes me his uncle-lieutenant colonel-thing."

Havoc simply stared as Edward Elric's self-proclaimed uncle-lieutenant colonel-thing rubbed a dog's belly on the kitchen floor of the Flame Alchemist.

"I am worried for your daughter."

"Your concern is appreciated, Jeannie, it really is, but there's no need. Little Elicia is perfectly fine in the hands of her beautiful mother."

"Don't call me Jeannie."

"Why not? Your mother always- "

"You should get off the floor. I don't know when the colonel last mopped."

Both men quickly stood to attention, more out of fearful respect for Hawkeye than disgust for Mustang's cleaning habits.

"Where is the colonel, anyway?" Havoc asked, rubbing his bruised behind as discreetly as possible.

"He's on watch."

It took Jean a moment to decipher what she meant.

"And?"

Riza gave him a pointed stare.

"I'm not the one you should be asking."

 _It is not my place to discuss Edward's condition. If you want to know how he's feeling, ask him yourself._

"Can we see him, then? We brought ice cream."

He picked up the soggy tray and brandished it like an offering for passage. Hawkeye inspected it, then reached for one, picking it up with one hand and using the other to remove the cover of tin foil that had been tied around the cup with baking string. She replaced it after seeing the strawberries.

"That one's Ed's."

She found what she was looking for on the second try. Plain vanilla, with a bit of caramel sauce on top. She moved to the kitchen cabinet and drew a spoon from the top drawer. She had taken her first bite and paused to savor the creamy-sweetness before she noticed the two men were standing still, watching her. She made a waving gesture with her spoon and devoted her full attention to her dessert-or she tried to. Though she'd taught him not to beg, Black Hayate's round, pleading eyes were hard to ignore. She may have let a spoonful or two slip onto the floor, perhaps intentionally. Either way, Hayate was immensely pleased.

XXX

Roy lay on the guestroom floor for a minute, allowing himself to assess the damage. He didn't think anything was broken. Fullmetal's fist had socked him square in the sternum. It ached horribly, but he doubted it would result in more than a light bruise. He started to get up, stopped halfway as the pain squeezed his heart like a vice and waited until it had faded, and managed to push himself to his feet.

Edward had used his right hand to guide his left arm into a position where his left hand could smother his swollen shoulder. The dark spot on his left arm was uncomfortably conspicuous, marking like a beacon where the muscle had torn under the flesh.

" _What the hell are you doing, you bastard?!"_ He hissed through gritted teeth.

"I was- "

" _Don't touch it!"_

Ed's eyes were shut tightly, and Roy could hear more than just annoyance in his voice.

Roy turned his attention to the rag clutched in his hand. Its warm wetness made his fingers feel cold and slippery, but the only things he saw there were cloth and a few small bubbles. There was no blood or pus that he could see. Edward must have been thinking along a similar line because he pulled his left arm away from his shoulder with his automail one and stared at his flesh palm. If he saw anything significant, he didn't show it. He simply returned his hand to his shoulder and closed his eyes.

Roy hadn't known what to do or say, so Hawkeye opening the door and entering the room with deadly calculation was no interruption. She saw Edward cradling his shoulder, saw Roy holding the soapy towel, and all but pushed the colonel aside to get to the boy.

"He was asleep, I thought I ought to get it over with while he was out…"

His excuses faded from his mouth. She wasn't listening to him anyway.

Riza wrapped her large, soft wrist around Fullmetal's small, hard one and gently pulled his hand away from his shoulder. The boy balked and resisted at first, then saw who it was and relented, but not without an air of hesitancy.

Roy told himself he wasn't jealous.

Riza touched his shoulder delicately, then brushed her fingertips beneath the edge of the metal port. Edward sucked his breath in through his teeth. Hawkeye drew her hand back and examined her fingers, rubbing them against her thumb.

When she finally looked Roy in the eyes, he saw no anger there.

"You might be a little gentler. His shoulder's swollen and tender from all the scrubbing yesterday, and the wound is draining. I'll grab some ice from the cool box. It'll probably be a lot easier on both of you if his shoulder is numbed up first."

Easier on both. Roy's throbbing chest agreed. Before she left, Roy asked her to bring back two ice blocks. She glanced at him upon his request but didn't respond beyond a nod.

The two boys were left in an awkward silence.

Roy thought that perhaps he should apologize. He should. But he knew he wouldn't. He hadn't gotten this far in life telling people that he did the wrong things, made the wrong decisions, even if everyone around him expected him to, and cast him glares and hateful looks when he didn't.

So, he said nothing.

Riza came back with two chunks of dripping ice wrapped in washcloths in each hand. Alphonse had opened the door for her and he entered the room behind her. Mustang had the suspicion that his lieutenant had asked Fullmetal's brother to join them. He couldn't help feeling irked that she might think he needed supervision. He heard rather than saw Black Hayate pad after them.

Ed managed a strained, humorless grin.

"Come to see the show, huh? Is Colonel Buttface selling tickets?"

Roy couldn't pass this up.

"I certainly am. And there selling like hotcakes."

Ed's grin shifted to a scowl, which he turned on his brother when Alphonse giggled.

Hayate jumped on the bed and sniffed. He sniffed the air and the covers, then sniffed Edward's foot experimentally, then his side, his stomach (Fullmetal grunted as the dog's breath tickled his skin), and up to his shoulder. He snorted and drew back, settled himself on Ed's lap, yawned and closed his eyes. Ed sighed and scratched the dog behind the ears.

Hawkeye handed one ice block to Edward and one to Roy, who didn't bother with subtly as he tucked the ice under his shirt. Ed held his to his shoulder with his right hand and made a sound of grateful relief. The cold water slinking under his shoulder port felt heavenly.

If a conversation had been forming, it died before it was born. Almost as soon Hawkeye completed her delivery, the sound of the front door opening and closing took everyone's attention. Hayate plodded to the edge of the mattress and hopped to the floor, then trotted out of the room to investigate.

"General Grand gave me one nasty phone call this morning."

Hughes's voice.

"What did he want?"

"He demanded to know why I haven't returned to Central yet. _'The cows have come home, and the crooks are in the pokey, why are you still there?'_ First, I told him that isn't how people in the countryside talk, and to please not to be so stereotypical and offensive. He told me I could go pleasure myself, I told him I don't need to, Gracia does a fine job- "

Roy's face turned the color of a tomato and Riza made to lunge for Edward in a way that made him flinch (which sent his upper torso spasming again). She stopped and retreated when Havoc's horrified, "Sir, please!" echoed from the kitchen. It took Ed ten seconds to realize that Hawkeye had been about to cover his ears.

"Right, sorry, sorry, off topic. I told him I was working on a local case, you know that jewelry shop break-in that happened over the weekend? And since the East County Fair has started making its rounds, I thought I'd take the opportunity to pay Roy a visit and let my girls have some fun for a few days. But then… well, you know… and so I told Grand that I'm staying for a family emergency."

There was a painful sounding thump.

"You lied to the Iron Blood Alchemist?!"

"What?! No! Of course not! I would never lie to a superior officer. Maybe tell a half truth or say nothing at all, but never lie. That would set a horrible example for my baby girl!"

"But you said you had a family emergency. You don't have any family in East City."

"Sure, I do. Roy-Boy is like a brother to me, and Ed is his kid… major… thing. So that makes me his uncle-lieutenant colonel-thing."

It was Fullmetal's turn to blush fiercely. He turned his gaze to his contracting and retracting chest muscles, more to avoid looking anyone in the eye than out of some morbid curiosity.

"I am worried for your daughter."

Mustang snorted. "We _all_ are," he mumbled under his breath.

"Your concern is appreciated, Jeannie, it really is, but there's no need. Little Elicia is perfectly fine in the hands of her beautiful mother."

"I'd better go intervene before they hurt themselves." That was as close to a "permission to be excused" as they were going to get from Riza Hawkeye. She left the room, closing the door behind her, but not before giving her superior officer a scolding scowl. It was _his_ house, after all, _he_ should be the one greeting _his_ guests. But Roy, like most men, did not understand his slipup nor Riza's ire because of it, and answered her glare with a pout of wounded confusion.

"His mom calls him _Jeannie_?" Alphonse asked as soon as the door was shut, his voice impish with mischief.

"Sorry."

The reparation came suddenly and without preamble; Mustang needed a moment to puzzle out what Fullmetal was apologizing for.

"It's nothing." He meant it. The blow had landed on a sensitive, although nonvital, part of his body. The ice's purpose was to simply calm the tingling ache than lessen any swelling.

"You're not bleeding or anything?"

"No. Just a bruise."

The boy sounded genuinely concerned and remorseful, and not just to save face. He felt backwards somehow, Edward asking him if he was all right.

"You have a cooling box?"

Roy couldn't help the smile the innocent curiosity he heard in the boy's voice.

"You've never seen one before?"

"Oh, we have. Teacher has one to keep choice steaks fresh for her butcher shop," said Alphonse, any previous hints of fiendishness long gone.

"Most people in Central have one. Mine's pretty simple-ice drawer on top, food cupboard in the middle, drip tray on bottom."

Edward was staring at the ice block in his hand with newfound wonderment.

"We weren't allowed near Teacher's cooling box," he said, watching water droplets coagulate on his metal shoulder. "She was afraid we would get locked in. Al did once, and I had to transmute a hole in the door, so he could get out. Teacher was always suspicious of the alchemy marks on the wood, but she had no evidence we knew anything about it, so we got away with it."

Roy studied the suit of armor incredulously.

" _You_ got yourself locked in a cooling box? I thought you were the mild-mannered one."

Edward's indignant "Hey!" was ignored.

"I just wanted to see how it worked," Alphonse mumbled, quietly and sheepishly.

"You smelled like ham afterward."

"You smell like ham now," Roy commented under his breath.

Rather than chomp on the bait, Ed winced, then removed the ice from his shoulder and started rubbing it over his face in an impromptu bath."

Mustang swallowed a snort of amusement.

"You know, Brother, I could- "

"I do _not_ need help taking a bath!"

"You would probably feel better- "

" _No_! That is the _one_ thing you are not allowed to assist me with!"

"Brother, who do you think it was who washed you when you were stoned on morphine during your surgery?"

Edward took a breath and opened his mouth as much as his lockjaw would permit to retort, finished processing his brother's words, and the fever spots on his cheeks vanished as his face turned the color of snow. His eyes shifted from confrontational to pleading as he asked, "Please tell me it was- "

"They wouldn't let me until I proved I could feed you without shoving a spoon down your throat."

The snow color was quickly replaced with one of red wine.

To his credit, Roy Mustang held his tongue throughout the exchange. He wanted to tease him as was in tandem with his snark-based relationship with the boy, but his fundamental principles of manhood told him he owed Edward his congratulations.

Then again, he wasn't sure whether it had been the tender flower or the wrinkled prune who had serviced him-if Winry Rockbell could even be considered tender or a flower.

He decided he didn't want to know.

This is how Havoc, Hughes, Hawkeye, and Hayate found them-Alphonse snickering as subtly as an empty suit of armor can, Edward looking like he had a severe sunburn, and Roy Mustang smirking triumphantly like he had just won some sort of bet.


End file.
